{"id":50,"date":"2019-09-02T02:47:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-02T06:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/?p=50"},"modified":"2021-03-23T02:36:03","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T06:36:03","slug":"glitter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/?p=50","title":{"rendered":"Glitter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Poison<\/em>
\nThe last vestiges of summer, Storm and I met for brunch and then proceeded to amble about the East Village rather aimlessly. It was pleasant and rainy. Light grey, light rain. We came across a Church on 1st Avenue.
\n\u201cLook!\u201d said Storm \u201cIt\u2019s Datura,\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s what?\u201d
\nHe was pointing at a cluster of white bell-shaped flowers in the Church yard
\n\u201cDatura. It\u2019s a hallucinogen. Shamanic\u201d
\n\u201cReally?\u201d
\n\u201cCome on,\u201d
\nWe jumped over the fence and plucked a stem. A flower; white, white as a marble goddess with purple veins. A heavy, heady scent. Our sting operation was invisible to all, save the Virgin who stood immobile and unblinking in the garden.<\/p>\n

At Storm\u2019s we nimbly dissembled the petals and the stalk and thought of ways to ingest it. There was no need, a peculiar thing had already happened: we had absorbed it through our skin. We could tell\u2014 not only were we plunged into a liquid daze: all latent attractions became apparent. Dire molecular friction:
\n\u201cI think it\u2019s an aphrodisiac\u201d
\nThe rain pattered heavily outside. There was the sound of imaginary thunder, then:
\nA kiss, like poison
\nEden turned to Gethsemane
\nFlustered, I left. It was too complicated; he was already involved and in love with someone else. I had been bruised by one love triangle too many.<\/p>\n

That night I slept with a wreath of Datura at my bedside. My dreams were dense and populated with darknesses like some urgent prophecy downloaded into unconscious regions. In the morning I had changed. I was acutely aware of this when I spoke to Storm over the phone. Incredible distance had built up between us. A gravity on my part made it impossible for us to be comfortable. Over the next few weeks we lost touch in a spiral of phone tags and avoidances. A new anger paved with indifference developed in me. A dark cloudy brew, I enveloped myself in poison: petals, stalks, seeds. The world changed around me: it was my battlefield. A bloody altar.<\/p>\n

Later I would read about the dancing girls of Arabia who spiked wine with Datura seeds and made slaves of their clients. Witches used it to fly and copulate with the Devil. In Haiti it was used in distillations to create zombies.
\nI passed by the Church one night in the Fall, there were no flowers, no heavy scent. I broke off a branch of dying leaves.<\/p>\n

Where have all the flowers gone? Flowers of evil? Long time passing…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Sphinx<\/em>
\nFall was dark. Friends fell away from me, a withering of desire. Strange Romanticist notions: I came to think of myself as one who skulked in shadows and night. Stalking no one in particular, just the pitch black crevices for potential prey. One morning, waking, I felt my shadow become a long sinuous panther, snarling fetid breath. I was aware of her all day long: a threat to potential wayfarers. A stilled battle ax plunged in the minds of the unsuspecting: such was my aggression, a black cat. The next day I was clearing out the wine bottles for recycling, there were a couple under my bed, brand name Gato Negro, replete with a miniature black cat dangling from the bottleneck on a red thread.
\nI had been sphinxed. Arrived at a solution without knowing the riddle: incidents that knot up soul. I derived great pleasure from loneliness in those days. In the evenings I would hang out at any random number of bars: the men couldn\u2019t keep away, men in endless query. I\u2019d engage in dark violent sex marathons with people I had just met. Intensity: they\u2019d become afraid and not call me back. I hardly cared, I was only interested in dissolving the riddle I found myself become. I wanted answers.<\/p>\n

A Sphinx is one part lion and mostly female. A beast with two backs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Glitter<\/em>
\nLate December, the streets were flash with window displays, shoppers; holiday cheer. Everything bright and twinkly. On Madison Avenue, I heard a boy ask his mother:
\n\u201cWhat is glitter made of Mommy?\u201d
\nI walked downtown lost in a trance of sparkles, his question revised resounding in my head:
\n\u201cWhat is glitter?\u201d
\nConsider the opal, its fickle color play\u2014 the disco element of Nature. How is it that glitz evokes the sacred star shelters\u2014 Isis, Ishtar, Inanna\u2014 their splendour and purity?
\nHow elegantly he states it, the Wolf I met in a dream once:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is glitter in all things: only the true adept can harness its steelfire, the star showers; they are skeletal mysterions, a deep grammar lodged in the mundane\u2014\u201d<\/em>
\n We are in the glacial caves of the Far North, caught in an icy blast\u2014<\/em>
\n Eyes, green-flecked demons snare me<\/em>
\n (I was far, but now am near).<\/em>
\n (Frozen)<\/em>
\n Fangs: carved gleaming scmitars of menace, a death-shaped mouth<\/em>
\n drips jewels,<\/em>
\n he speaks, mocking:<\/em>
\n \u201cOnly the pure in heart will perceive glitter<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

And in things other than words I am made to understand that this purity has nought to do with blamelessness or naivet\u00e9.
\nAnd now the stars in the clear of Winter nights: shining down on me, stellar charges of purity. My brain rammed hollow at the bitterness of that thought: pure. What is pure? What was it like to feel clean and untrammeled?
\nHow decadent I had become.
\nUnconsciously I had stopped in front of the Church. There were no flowers, no leaves, just the gnarly vine branch in decay:
\n\u201cWe\u2019re all sold out here in the pleasure department\u201d
\nI turned round,
\n\u201cHi Storm,\u201d
\nWe hadn\u2019t spoken in months. I thought I hadn\u2019t missed him\u2014
\n\u201cWhat are you up to?\u201d
\n\u201cI was just taking a walk\u2014\u201d this was awkward.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s really cold.\u201d
\n\u201cI know\u201d
\n\u201cHow have you been?\u201d
\n\u201cDevious. You?\u201d
\nHe laughed, \u201cIt\u2019s always sort of tricky, right? What are you doing, do you want to come up to my place for a joint?\u201d
\nWhat is glitter?
\n\u201cSure. Why not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back at the ranch, not only did we smoke a bowl, he said
\n\u201cI\u2019ve got liquid too\u201d
\n\u201cReally, where\u2019s it from?\u201d
\n\u201cA friend brought it in from Santa Fe. It\u2019s really pure stuff. So clean\u201d
\nWe split a sugar cube, a half hit each.
\nA half hour of silence. He killed the lights, we sat in darkness
\n\u201cLook!\u201d he said
\nOutside white crystal flurries rushed passed the windows, resting on the fire escape.
\nWe watched the first snows, collided and kissed.
\n\u201cIt feels so glittery\u201d he said.
\nAfter love we steal into the park: soft white snow, diamond palette and night. Snowflakes, crystal as crystal meth.
\nIs this glitter?
\nBare trees, benches and grass adrift in glassy white.
\nThere is an angel in the snow, Look! I say to Storm
\n\u201cIs that an angel made of snow, or is that an angel in the snow?\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d I say,
\nbut think of an incident I read about long ago:
\nAn Evangelist from the Bible Belt on vacation with his family in Utah. They stop by the Mormon Tabernacle for a guided tour. Atop the main church building is a statue of the angel Moroni who had led Mormon founder, Joseph Smith, to the tablets\u2014 the Book of Mormon. The tour guide explains this to them, adding also that every now and then the angel speaks to present company, sending the chosen one into a trance. The Evangelist\u2019s son, a young boy, not quite thirteen, immediately falls into spasms\u2014 an epileptic fit. The tour guide and the other Mormons marvel at this miracle taking place in their midsts. But the Evangelist, having none of this, lays hands on his son, casting out the demon that troubles him\u2014
\n\u201cMormons?\u201d says Storm
\nI realize we are now telepathic
\n\u201cNamed after the Angel Moroni.\u201d I try to explain about the boy I was thinking of\u2014 \u201cHe fell into a trance because the angel was trying to communicate\u201d
\n\u201cWe\u2019re in a trance\u201d
\n\u201cYou think? Is that an angel?\u201d
\nWe look at the mass of swirling snow, it could be. It could also be:
\n\u201cGod in the whirlwind\u201d
\n\u201cPure spirit\u201d
\n\u201cAbsolut!\u201d
\nWe giggle and embrace: whirling flakes encompass us, losing us in a flurry of angels and stars and god. Glitter.<\/p>\n

\u00a92003, 2013 onome ekeh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poison The last vestiges of summer, Storm and I met for brunch and then proceeded to amble about the East Village rather aimlessly. It was pleasant and rainy. Light grey, light rain. We came across a Church on 1st Avenue. \u201cLook!\u201d said Storm \u201cIt\u2019s Datura,\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s what?\u201d He was pointing at a cluster of white bell-shaped flowers in the Church yard \u201cDatura. It\u2019s a hallucinogen. Shamanic\u201d \u201cReally?\u201d \u201cCome on,\u201d We jumped over the fence and plucked a stem. A flower; white, white as a marble goddess with purple veins. A heavy, heady scent. Our sting operation was invisible to all, save the Virgin who stood immobile and unblinking in the garden. At Storm\u2019s we nimbly dissembled the petals and the stalk and thought of ways to ingest it. There was no need, a peculiar thing had already happened: we had absorbed it through our skin. We could tell\u2014 not only were we plunged into a liquid daze: all latent attractions became apparent. Dire molecular friction: \u201cI think it\u2019s an aphrodisiac\u201d The rain pattered heavily outside. There was the sound of imaginary thunder, then: A kiss, like poison Eden turned to Gethsemane Flustered, I left. It was too complicated; he was already involved and in love with someone else. I had been bruised by one love triangle too many. That night I slept with a wreath of Datura at my bedside. My dreams were dense and populated with darknesses like some urgent prophecy downloaded into unconscious regions. In the morning I had changed. I was acutely aware of this when I spoke to Storm over the phone. Incredible distance had built up between us. A gravity on my part made it impossible for us to be comfortable. Over the next few weeks we lost touch in a spiral of phone tags and avoidances. A new anger paved with indifference developed in me. A dark cloudy brew, I enveloped myself in poison: petals, stalks, seeds. The world changed around me: it was my battlefield. A bloody altar. Later I would read about the dancing girls of Arabia who spiked wine with Datura seeds and made slaves of their clients. Witches used it to fly and copulate with the Devil. In Haiti it was used in distillations to create zombies. I passed by the Church one night in the Fall, there were no flowers, no heavy scent. I broke off a branch of dying leaves. Where have all the flowers gone? Flowers of evil? Long time passing…   The Sphinx Fall was dark. Friends fell away from me, a withering of desire. Strange Romanticist notions: I came to think of myself as one who skulked in shadows and night. Stalking no one in particular, just the pitch black crevices for potential prey. One morning, waking, I felt my shadow become a long sinuous panther, snarling fetid breath. I was aware of her all day long: a threat to potential wayfarers. A stilled battle ax plunged in the minds of the unsuspecting: such was my aggression, a black cat. The next day I was clearing out the wine bottles for recycling, there were a couple under my bed, brand name Gato Negro, replete with a miniature black cat dangling from the bottleneck on a red thread. I had been sphinxed. Arrived at a solution without knowing the riddle: incidents that knot up soul. I derived great pleasure from loneliness in those days. In the evenings I would hang out at any random number of bars: the men couldn\u2019t keep away, men in endless query. I\u2019d engage in dark violent sex marathons with people I had just met. Intensity: they\u2019d become afraid and not call me back. I hardly cared, I was only interested in dissolving the riddle I found myself become. I wanted answers. A Sphinx is one part lion and mostly female. A beast with two backs.   Glitter Late December, the streets were flash with window displays, shoppers; holiday cheer. Everything bright and twinkly. On Madison Avenue, I heard a boy ask his mother: \u201cWhat is glitter made of Mommy?\u201d I walked downtown lost in a trance of sparkles, his question revised resounding in my head: \u201cWhat is glitter?\u201d Consider the opal, its fickle color play\u2014 the disco element of Nature. How is it that glitz evokes the sacred star shelters\u2014 Isis, Ishtar, Inanna\u2014 their splendour and purity? How elegantly he states it, the Wolf I met in a dream once: \u201cThere is glitter in all things: only the true adept can harness its steelfire, the star showers; they are skeletal mysterions, a deep grammar lodged in the mundane\u2014\u201d We are in the glacial caves of the Far North, caught in an icy blast\u2014 Eyes, green-flecked demons snare me (I was far, but now am near). (Frozen) Fangs: carved gleaming scmitars of menace, a death-shaped mouth drips jewels, he speaks, mocking: \u201cOnly the pure in heart will perceive glitter\u201d And in things other than words I am made to understand that this purity has nought to do with blamelessness or naivet\u00e9. And now the stars in the clear of Winter nights: shining down on me, stellar charges of purity. My brain rammed hollow at the bitterness of that thought: pure. What is pure? What was it like to feel clean and untrammeled? How decadent I had become. Unconsciously I had stopped in front of the Church. There were no flowers, no leaves, just the gnarly vine branch in decay: \u201cWe\u2019re all sold out here in the pleasure department\u201d I turned round, \u201cHi Storm,\u201d We hadn\u2019t spoken in months. I thought I hadn\u2019t missed him\u2014 \u201cWhat are you up to?\u201d \u201cI was just taking a walk\u2014\u201d this was awkward. \u201cIt\u2019s really cold.\u201d \u201cI know\u201d \u201cHow have you been?\u201d \u201cDevious. You?\u201d He laughed, \u201cIt\u2019s always sort of tricky, right? What are you doing, do you want to come up to my place for a joint?\u201d What is glitter? \u201cSure. Why not.\u201d Back at the ranch, not only did we smoke a bowl, he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3690,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6],"tags":[195,11,145],"class_list":["post-50","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-short-story","tag-fiction","tag-flash-flood-effect","tag-flood"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":419,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50\/revisions\/419"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thememorexe.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}