…from the denim fade at morning’s rise, the screech owl’s serrated cry severs the horizon.

Dawn charges.

Her ritual rise, reigniting embers from the depths of Hell, illuminating the sky in gilded light.

I sit within the aura of Gaia, silent in my physical, silent in my breath, my mind imploding with thought.

…I have a student who gets bullied daily, 3:30pm yesterday, he came to me and leveled me with the words, “I want to die. I’m ready to kill myself.” The maternal took up with a rage, the empath crushed by the weight of his hopelessness, the nurturer set forth to aid.

I get told daily, never bring work home, but a child isn’t work, an inanimate thing, nor their pain easily dropped and forgotten.

The morning flares, as my thoughts cycle, the unhealthy cycle, the opalescent light guiding my hands, into prayer, into meditation…I think upon the lotus, the heron, and sight…I silence my mind, I fuel my fight…

E.A. O'Connell. November 2018

Last night, swathed in the dark of my room, I sat upon the bed, looking out upon the eigengrau sky, vacant of moonlight and star luster, and the shadows of pitch and depth.

The wind gave touch to the magnolia, sounding a percussion that hasn’t been audible in nearly a year, sounds of bronze and falling water.

I was keenly aware of the autumn precipice, the scent of one season absorbing the other, the faint chill accenting my home, bedroom, and body…cedar, juniper, rosemary, wood sage, sea salt, lavender, and apple.

I caught a flash of movement, inky in hue and flow, and I watched as this shadow slipped like quicksilver, until it was nothing more than the imperceptible breeze…a fox of fluidity, and cricket strings, and the distant train blaring its speed.

E.A. O'Connell. November 2018

Ravens wheeling, astral songs sending them, lost within their heads, fractured silhouettes, lacerating the monochrome sky, amassing imperfections, as honor as fight

A dream backdrops, a conscious awareness, I’m falling but not felled, I’m a gasp in synchronicity with the hypnic jerk, I’m the mind patrolling for death, I’m on the edge, and the sky opens wide, the earth accepts

I Corvid, I Lupine, I Anguis…beastly flesh and tone, naked, I soar I run I coil…aspens of formulaic chance, illuminate the expanse of night, phantoms caught in almost, the staccato voice of rain, of shivering nerves, gives me cause to breathe, to hone my senses, to pick up your scent in the hunt…I’m closing in, I’m starving, for you

E.A. O'Connell. November 2018

{Excerpt}

I communed with Death last night,

His fluidity, patient in pace,

tepid solstice breeze against the thin flesh of my throat,

waking me gently

I rolled within Him,

lush darkness of a new moon wood, just beyond the hedge,

coarse fingers spanning, trailing, leaning my head back

A fingertip of half-rot coaxing my eyelids open,

our stare a reminder of origins, our introduction

a reminiscing of lunar language, our seasonal progression

and I heard from deep within Him, every lyric I’ve ever connected with as an aria, a requiem of we

crescendo in variegated storm

He inhaled the nature of his pilgrimage,

moistening his lips of moth eaten linen,

invisible threads stitching us nearer, until our foreheads rested,

our thoughts channeled,

mine giving him reason to hold me closer, His giving me cause to bloom

…“I was angry…You didn’t claim me…all those times…you left me earthbound…lost in pain, grief, agony…abandoned, lost, betrayed…but now…the why?…I can see for myself your reasons…I finally see what eluded me…there’s a bounty of worth in my chaos…”

“I’m part of every cell that made you, every breath that sustains you…I’ve never once deviated…I’m not always in your direct, but I’m never out of your periphery…we are bound and inevitable…imperfectly infinite…and you’re chaos is a wild that reminds and emboldens the Dire, to break free of restraints when collared, to chew its own limb off when snared…I didn’t, because you would…you have…you…”

E.A. O'Connell. November 2018

Orchard: First Bite (Revised)

illustrated thoughts in bass string voices, 
pulsating my nerves and flesh
summer breaking autumn, 
like a tree’s bark in plaster crack ruin
eyes drain of color at a wind downed apple
     your appetite whetting
mental storms in atmospheric fury, 
cast a cyclone pressed orchard
     you think upon me
     upon the first bite, 
     a succulent revelation
swell of lips, 
will of hips,
and grass stained thighs 
the waning warmth of rain, 
welling within the whorls of my fingerprints
     the length of your spine
     your head rolls heavy, 
     full with earthen-womb daughter songs
     your eyes see ghost shadows,
     dancing in the wake of rusting leaves
our imprints remain, 
giving life to tenebrous dreams,
proof to
the incarnate
the resurrection
the impossibility
     the walls of your mind,
     still echoing my feral breathing 

E.A. O'Connell

Dream Series: Wildling

…the mountains keep calling to me… {return}

…every time my eyes shut and sleep begins its theft of me…I’m bare and left on the side of the interstate…walking right through high speed traffic —ghosting— nothing but a breeze rushing through me…car radios and conversations, accelerations and chains…cyclone and fall silent at my back…

…the mountains look straight into me, their knowledge felt in every cell of my being…their language spurs me on…speaking in colors, textures, and fragrances…their music a spirit song of forests, rocks and minerals…feathers, scales, and follicles…raindrops like gazing balls, particles of light through vapor, streams and ripples…unbalanced chimes that center…my heart beats an errant pace, of Gods & Monsters rife with abandonment and longing…they know: conceived and stolen to industry…they want me returned…

…clouds that swallow me whole…hide-and-seek me from civilization, giving me back to roots: feral and free, earthing and puncture wounds, the blood and dirt a rite…scars on full display…I don’t feel ugly and wrong, nor out of place in the unpredictability…I thrive, I know I’m some wild extension, a myth, a beast of its own making…evading capture and the hunter’s sentence…I’m a familiar and my foretold was not for keeps, they want me home…they want for their wildling…

…further in sleep…under a new moon, devoid of light…the expanse of secrets before me…Its presence made known, taking place at my side…”Escape.” “I fear they’ve broken me.” “If you leap, we’ll catch you.” “They’ve conditioned me to human fears and comforts.” “You know the ways of the ancient.” {Silence} “I have nothing to leave you.” “You’ve left traces of yourself. That’ll do for now.” {Silence} “Where do I begin…” “You are a tale being told. An open ending.” {Silence} “I already know how I’m going to die.” “And?” I smile, shedding man-made fears and Earth-given skin, and allow my soul her swan dive…

…I awaken…my eyes open, but the glorious void and the depth of phantoms, still my vision…I hear the 4am birds and stars…I hear the adventure thrumming my veins…I hear the next mountain calling my wildling name…

E.A. O'Connell

...{Story Excerpt: Letter}

Dearest,

…I wish I could be less…too much…I’ve a dark mind and incomprehensible thoughts…nothing translates, so I write silence…my hand into the letter box comes up empty…I fear I’m too late…if it weren’t for the moon…turning a blind eye to all the blood I’ve slipped…wicked and warranted…I’m afraid my time is soon…if I will you my soul, will you find a crossroad of an origin she’s familiar…she doesn’t cross over…she circumnavigates and distracts…she doesn’t transcend or transmutate, she grows fierce with a hunger, but not of the stomach…she’s a pain in the ass and knows it…she doesn’t answer when spoken to, and if you meet her eyes, you’ll feel the rush of liquor fueled flames beneath your flesh…don’t mistake it for lust, it’s a spontaneous combustion of your nervous system…if she smiles at you, you’ve sealed a pact with Death’s mistress and I advise you to not request a happy ending…but if she inhales you, her eyes closing as her lips part, a slight tremor of quiet language escaping, and her fingers stitch the air and impale into her sternum like a pincushion, you’ve been sealed…bound…to her soul existence…and she will spill blood and crack bones for you…her teeth are a decoy, don’t get caught on the sharp of them, she’ll shred you, roll you, and smoke you…you’ll never learn her name, and don’t ever ask her of it, and if you should become in possession of it by some strange twist of fate, you’ll most certainly be going to a baser Hell, and not by way of God or the Devil…so just don’t…I only ask this of you, because leaving her to her own devices never bodes well…when you meet her you’ll know why I am…why you fell in love with me…why you couldn’t ever explain what you knew… …once you’ve found her a crossroads, don’t speak of parting ways, and don’t look back…it’s not biblical, it’s practical, it’s a preservation of your sight as she eclipses…if she offers you a gesture in kind, it’s a sleight of hand…you’ll surely be missing something when all is said and done, and it won’t be something from your pocket…if while there you should see an obsidian mirror, out of place, let curiosity overcome you…she’ll allow it…and you’ll get answers you’ve sought…but she may steal a glimpse from over your shoulder, and you’ll have to dare to ask for her to extract her thoughts…it will be less than flattering, and take it as a sign of good will if she offers it to you in pellet form…dig a grave and bury it…unless you want to finally ask a question of her, then you’ll have to ingest it…but one extremely well thought out question…and not her fucking name… …take comfort in knowing she’s impossibly stubborn and refuses anything, but that which she makes of this world…her refusal to cross, is my resurrection…she’ll seek out a new mortal form, so keep clear your peripheral…we may shadow step and spar with your sanity…you’ll know it’s we, Baby…and then the real fun will be had… …if I’ve forgotten anything, I trust you’ll learn as you go…and all will end well, with you still in possession of breath and a breaking fever familiar…

…all my flesh & armor…

Mon Horreur, Mon Coeur,

Your Agony

E.A. O'Connell