Michael Workman

Amrodel Dead


i cut the rock below the earth and fill my arm with dusted paints
i fall into a fishie-stream and dream a dream of unsurpassing
glamour and enchantment.

i fish my Wrists for life's emphatic bleat and
find beneath my Blood a whole and newer thing;
which, with its unbinding, seeks the sun and
lets its lips become the Eye
of Hour.

i fell into a whistlie dark and daring cave and beyond the dripping whisper
of its fangy
lid i seeped inside a crescent fishie-stream where soulless crisp and white
and dreary eyeballs
peek a precious light inside myself

i have an Eye, an Hour, two Wrists and just one drop of Blood.

i could do no damage.

beyond the swimming, beneath the fatal floating of a cold and wretched
corpse:

amrodel dead

i see the waterlog way she lay,
as if blanketed;
blank, afraid, shocking.
kill the wetness, kill the chill, kill the light.

i could kiss you, murderer.

i remember your basement.
plans of tut's untombing combed our tangled lochs.
old and stickie rosemeat lay about.
dread and death's unhiding shout.

dreams of years and years,
dreams that go to golden fields where sun is like a lemon dew upon the neck,
dreams below a well of vibrant sung and racing angels,
dreams below our feet could never warm our hearts.

dreams of years and years, and years we never kept,
dreams of glowing with la lune,
and the splendour that she wept.

she let the fishies brush her up
another choice was missing.

that log was wept.
thus began Our Last And Dying Grasp,
which with a million horse's hearts,
we cast ourselves (young elves) upon
the stinking creek,
and each moon leak its great and brilliant
glance into trying, drowning eyes.

the moon could drown us too, we knew,
and in our cold we sunk to lowest depth.

below a certain point we touched our feet upon
a rock, and cut our arms around its heated current.

that blood could--it would--swirl a certain way.
that blood would--it could--whirl until day.

a way in which the rhythms of some deep and dying god
were summoned, and the wrath of his last words swept us to
a light and peaceful eddy,
where we lay panting till some desert consumed us with a dry and dusty fire.

in this way we learned to breath a different air,
which let our minds know truer things;
in this way we learned to walk this path:
of the lotus in the rose.





Heartclock

if the world were deathly still,
and your heart a spinning place,
what way would your blood whirl?--
by what would we set pace?

would roses buy a lover?
would time buy a clock?
would moonthings cease to hover
around their earthen dock?

if love were temporal,
and eternity a beast,
I'd live my love a tool--
useful at the least.




The Peasant


i saw a fire queen
drop from
that window.

i felt that flame should be rising, rising,
and at winter's descent,
i hid so low
that anything was a throne
for her
snatch.




michael p. workman: i am nineteen years old. i don't know what to say about any mental illness. i've been 'diagnosed' with many Disorders, but not all of them i am so sure were actually present. They include bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, general anxiety disorder, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, ADHD, the list goes on. i've been on dozens of different medications, ingested massive amounts of illegal drugs, controlled substances, and alcohol, tried to kill myself six times(only two of which were serious attempts), been hospitalized, all that rot. i only include the long list to show that neither i, nor educated, trained professionals seem to agree on what, exactly, is The Problem, nor how to effectively treat it. all i can say for sure is that i seem to have trouble stimulating myself in safe and acceptable ways, and that i am cursed with something that others will always cruelly refer to as 'Being Gifted.' i won't be surprised if in my early twenties i begin seeing the symptoms of what i really have--probably schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. people will say "we should have seen it coming." oh well. at least i'm not one of The Stupids. anyway.






K. Lee Michael Workman Colin Van Der Woude Peter Tremain Rick Parsons Karen Herring Joe Hackworth