Time’s Channel

Perceived truth with fictions affixed
written as a palimpsest
of oneiric presque vu,
revenant realities
read quiet cacophony,
a complex being
composed of colors
which make when mixed
what we cannot name,
navigating the waters
of existence by kaleidoscope
and sempiternal seasons
and spontaneity of wind,
eyes closed on peaceful nights
or candle lit to embrace
the diablerie of life
sieved noetic and numinous
towards that sobriquet time
through which we set our sails to self,
our transfiguring stories.

phantasmagoria of sound

beneath blankets
I fold into myself
like an insect or an adder.
in my cold room
the whirring machines
transmute to music
in my head.
falling backwards
into nightly abyss,
reality-
dream-
fantasy-
memory
become vertigo;
somnolescent
through fog
like an old ghost
I see without eyes
blindness overtaken by
screams of no exit:
again I seek
and am sought
as Dorian Gray
and Demon Grendel
predator
and
prey
my prayer
prevaricates
in fleshly
dissonance,
spirit spent
in submerged
paroxysm,
static
of slaughter
grows sonorous
grotesque
resounding

gorging
into insatiable
swollen self-
devouring
into what I do not know:
silence.

Connor Orrico is a medical student with interests in global health, mental health, and how we make meaning from the stories we share with each other, themes which were recently explored in his publications in Headline Poetry & Press, Detritus, and Dreich Magazine.