Days…plagued by spying eyes…kaleidoscopic sieves of life in mercurial projection…following a discovery of trance in the angles of my form…the temper of my thoughts can’t free from the restraints of my silence…they fever an osmosis and solder upon the dusky wings…this anomaly of curiosity…carrying an imprint of me through astral realms…to the voyeur…who reads me…intimately…

E.A. O'Connell. November 2018

An abundance of monarchs in the front yard today…their flare and dip, a flash of planetary hue, as the moon hung off kilter and wide in the ever expanse…

The thistles that line the walkway were angry, their thorns capturing and snagging, a mood settled by my gentle hand, and my appreciative words, “Your evils are lovely”…

Moonflowers that seeded themselves, sought darkness inward, centripetal curling, their illumination soft with pleasure in reminiscing the night’s lore…

A singular, fuchsia-maned zinnia, bold in height, trained her keen eye on the orbweaver…a textile of petal and silk and candy-striped spindles…

…the end is in sight, I see the telltale signs, so I take it all in, at the pace it sets…the garden…each year I watch, as it slows, as it fades, and gradually withers away…as light casts new angles, and shadows unearth new portals…I’ll winter and I’ll await…the reincarnation of transcendent design…

E.A. O'Connell. November 2018

…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