Narcissus-X Contemplates Flight Through the Ebon Abyss

Churning mass of umber-hued mire. Dark dither of dull dreams, drably parading past a review stand of petrified oligarchs.

Out! Narcissus-X rages: Out with you, sharp-edged nuggets of thought! Emerge from your prison! Narcissus-X, sinking as if alone in an oatmeal ocean.

Alone. The artist is a lonely one: pursuing what others cannot, or do not wish to, see; traveling paths made by - what?

Perhaps Narcissus-X the sleeping has already traversed these lands, leading the way for Narcissus-X the waking. If only Narcissus-X could meet Narcissus-X: could merge the waking and the sleeping mind.

Then - fly through the ebon abyss of night with all eyes open: those that see only light, and the eye of the mind which perceives what is seen, and can peer into the unseen: now and again catching an outline - a color - a movement. And return, as a ship in ancient times: returning from unknown lands with strange cargo.

Narcissus-X Ponders Porlockian Presences

Soulless circuits screaming hoarse cries, frenetic cadence shredding serenity: slumber's visions cloven, wavering, rippling; and gone. Narcissus-X reaches for the spectral shapes: grasps and holds - nothing.

Precious phantasm. Dream or vision, impression of a truth or the truth itself: it is gone.

Metronome of madness, watcher of the hours, perfidious sentinel of sleep: the porlockian presence shall not despoil the domain of dreams again. Narcissus-X has paper, pen, and lamp at hand, should shrill alarms again disturb the portals of dream.

Narcissus-X Ponders Aspiration

Noble schemes seldom forfeit,
Braver deeds often fail,
Than trying to carry water
In an old, rusty pail.

Narcissus-X Contemplates the Suchness of Forms

Qantas and quatloos, quivers of quail:
Mountains of elephants packed like a snail.
Merfolk in desert, camel on ice:
Cats are like giants for krill in a pail.

Narcissus-X Broods on Day of the Taxes

April 15: A sixth part of the quarter, beloved interval of the Philistine.

And Lear cried out, "I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness; / I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children, / You owe me no subscription."

At least something, somewhere, somehow, was not taxed: if only in the realms of dream summoned forth by the Bard of Avon.

But Narcissus-X taxed must be, and much taxed with regret that so much time is lost forever, collecting records, filling forms, filing financial facts. Time in which Narcissus-X could have traversed the charcoal-clouded vastness of Xanadu's dream.

But now the forms are gone, cast into the bureaucratic abyss from whence they came: and art may live again.

Narcissus-X Contemplates Night Winds

Fears, avaunt! Not for naught does Narcissus-X breathe the clear, cold, air of night throughout the cobwebbed halls of fevered imaginings, driving out gibbering goblins of gloom and glowing-eyed ghosts of forgotten dreams.

Dust departed, Lemuria done, wind subsides, the halls are empty. No sound, no soft tread of shoeless foot on stone, no muffled creak of door or window.

No inspiration.

Narcissus-X traverses the halls. Steps echo in seeming answer.

Has more than fear fled? Narcissus-X will search the night.

Narcissus-X Broods on Kumquats, Voids, and Pistachios

Elysian kumquats of dubious intent hover forlornly about the works of Narcissus-X. Sunlit skies and lusterless grass fail to excite aesthetic embarkations. Narcissus-X broods on blank expanse: vast desert devoid of detail, inspired or plebeian.

Narcissus-X has visions: visions of vast voids, vacuums vacantly abiding where inspirations once flew.

Is the muse on furlough? Absence may make the heart grow fonder: but drives the artist mad.

Can inspiration fly without wings of fancy?

Whither pistachio almond ice cream?