Sunday, March 15, 2009

Alchemy and dangerous acids - 1997

a small hole
drawing inward
edged in white heat
a solar event
implosion

and the psyche
writhes unseen
victim of a
singularity
shadowed
silent

temenos
tempered
tampered
torn


This poem written in the middle of October, not long after I had written "I am here", traces an increasingly downward spiral into a cauldron that appears to be being heated, ready to burn the contents of the cauldron. The door to the unconscious contents had been opened and my conscious self was not yet aware of how to close the door, a skill which I had been so deft with over the decades. Control. It was slipping significantly. Daily it was more and more of a struggle to go to work and pretend that I was engaged, pretend that I was sane. I knew better. And, I continued to work small spells of concealment, hiding the truth of what was happening to me, even from my "self".

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My husband's first degree was chemistry and there is a substance, the name of which escapes me, an acid, that basically keeps on eating through whatever it is spilled on, right through feet of marble even, unless it is neutralised chemically. Even a tiny microscopic fragment just goes on burning through. You can imagine what it does to human flesh. Was this what you were thinking of?
My first thought with acid was actually LSD!