A Dream of Breaking White Stones

Enter a dreamscape of eagles, wolves, mad queens, and monsters

Jacquelyn "Jacsun" Shah of Houston, TX, holds: A.B. (Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude), Rutgers U; M.A. English, Drew U; M.F.A. and Ph.D. English literature/creative writing–poetry, U of Houston. Her publications include a poetry chapbook, small fry; a full-length poetry book, What to Do with Red; and poems in various journals. She was Literal Latté’s 2018 Food Verse Contest winner and is the Choeofpleirn Press 2023 Kenneth Johnston non-fiction book contest winner — publication forthcoming.

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Am I this ribbon of fire hanging like a pigtail from	
    the Sun, crackling in a hot wind of madness?
			Harry Crosby, “103º”      

							
I dream I am an eagle winging			
   over deserts of insanity,				
   breaking white stones,				
the absurdity of this dream being no more than	
   averagely characteristic of my sleeping state.	
I continually feel hurricanes of magic		
   storming into me as wild and insane as eagles.	        
I catapult through tunnels of delirium,		
   over my shoulders a cataract of unloosened stars.	
I am the Lion, I am the Sun,				
   I stamp upon the floor.				
O to be a wolf and bay at the moon,			
   I proclaim.    A Mad Queen				
   I remain . . . forced to return to the problems.	
  					
It is a monster that my thoughts have speared	
   after the heart’s departure,				
a swift metallic monster				
   curled in snaky arabesques, as cold as stone.
Unwedded from the world, I stray through trees	
   when the wind roars,				
in pursuit of drunken birds				
   from strange darknesses released,			
rattling dice in a yellow skull.				

At this moment, an ugly old man steps out		
   of his Rolls Royce.					 
Dark-fingered,						
   he utters an insect cry and departs,			
   flickering out of sight . . .				

I break with the past and race into the future,		
   my hands alive in expectation						
   of a death more beautiful than death.		

Cento — all lines and partial lines from different poems by Harry Crosby in Harry Crosby: Selected Poems 2020, edited by Ben Maze

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