Peripheral Visions
In the dark room
high beams of passing cars
sweep across the ceiling
like cold war movie searchlights
Outside...in the
radar garden
halogen street lamps illumine the snow
The mullioned shadow
of the window
casts a grid of
crosses on the opposite wall
breaking where it hits the mantlepiece
into sharp zig zags
of light and dark
transforming with each turning car
to illusions flickering at the edge of sight
The strange figurines
on the window sill
create grotesque silhouettes as well
There's a gnarly
gargoyle carved from driftwood
a laughing buddha
and a smiling coyote skull
They are animated in the motion of light
and out of the corner of my bleary eye
at the periphery of vision
it appears as if they're coming to life
and the radio's
pulsing mysterious signals
between frequencies
I hear surges of words
phrases phasing in and out
off on tangents through the atmosphere
distant disembodied voices
crackling in the clear night air
and I'm picking
up some weird interference
It's as if my receiver
has a mind of its own
waves of static break
into patterns of language
like the radio's
speaking some kind of code
I keep noticing
these strange correspondences lately
uncanny connections of perception and thought
passages from random books
opened by chance
on the same meaningful theme
like some Other consciousness guiding my mind
through
scenes of a recurring dream
© 2006 Gary Lee