The Ghastly Ottoman – A Cautionary Tale

EXTERIOR – NOWHERE.
THE HOUSE IS EMPTY, EYELESS AND LISTING.
ONLY THE GHASTLY OTTOMAN REMAINS, A MEMENTO MORI IN PAISLEY AND VELVET.
NOW, A TENTATIVE STEP. A FAR-OFF MOAN.
THE SHADOWS GATHER IN ABOUT THE OTTOMAN LIKE MEMBRANOUS WINGS…

Black concrete draws its cloak of steam down tight

Tiny jewels of neon, sharp and brittle promises on every edge.
Static hisses from the plastic minarets
Into the sunken pleasure-gardens of this broken night.
I’m tired, now. No rest. No sleep.

Falling sideways through a storm of years

Catching smoke, pacing, caged…
Small change in black-tiled roadside ruins
Tissue-paper skin and swinging bones -
A hot mouth stuffed with thorny prayers mutters at my back.

That morning the Prophet arose from his temple,

And stood crucified upon a rampant sun.
Grain bent to a scythe of wind,
Tin-can dreams in the grip of nowhere...
And out on the wire perched the coming rain

It remembered. Pentothal hot.

Reason fried in plastic;

A telegraph row of hanging trees
Insects on the meshwork, husks and hollow shells.
In the millstones of hard, flat light he stood
A bloody lance in one hand, cheap suitcase in the other.
He smelled of money, sweat and ashes
Stale motel afternoons.

And it's spilled coffee and chains and yellow newspaper eyes;
Stuffed swordfish and empty bottles
Little lies you told yourself.

It's hot motor oil at 3 A.M.

Fingernails cracked, wet asphalt mourning,
Warm beer and splintered timber dreams.

The pylons rise like praying hands,

Caught up in filigree that cuts the moon to ribbons.
Go now, swinging down the wind -
Spilled coffee beads and dances on the skillet, blacktop highway
Dancing, 'till it whispers into steam.

MEANWHILE, IN ITS EMPTY ROOM, THE PAISLEY PATTERN OF THE OTTOMAN SEEMS TO
WRITHE, LIQUID WITH ANTICIPATION…

In Basement Number Five the doors are welded shut

The light burns through a jaundice-yellow haze
And spitting shadows tiptoe on the water,
Black and deep as choking memory.

This is the tomb of a fragment ocean

Licking at the necks of drowning statues...

A grove of blunted swords,

Smooth eyes weeping oxidized
Bronze horses blind and frantic, cold five below the crooked streets.
This is the grave of surplus heroes
A victory-shrine for water, rust, and time.
A cough, a whisper, tight and bitter.
Take the skies down, unscrew each little star.
And open up the locks… I’m coming home.

HE KNEELS BEFORE IT LIKE A PENITENT, THE SUITCASE FALLING FROM HIS HANDS.
HERE, INTIMATELY CLOSE, HE CAN MAKE OUT WORDS FLOATING SUSPENDED IN THE
EMBROIDERY.

“We had fragments, then

And threw them in the face of heaven, laughing -
Before the searchlights clawed the belly of the sky,
Cold-riveted down to leviathan dreams.

They gonna roll you in hot black ink, boy

Press your face up tight to the glass
Hang your eyes on keychains,
Take your voice to whisper on the dead air,
off down long-distance lines to nowhere.

The wind will smell like rain on tin,

Like summer blood, bending the reeds of wire
But the sand just keeps on falling, boy.
The hours, days, and seconds picked out in steel and radium
Each one recalls the weight of mountains
Each tiny mote a world.”

AN OLD VICTROLA SPINS SCREWLOOSE IN THE TOWER ROOM, HISSING ITS REFRAIN
INTO THE SHADOWS. OBOES AND HAPSICHORD OVER DUST…
HE SLIDES HIS FINGERS UNDER THE PAISLEY CUSHIONS, IN MORBID FEAR OF TEETH…

The empty hour has found you

A crumpled photograph of yourself
Smoothed cold across the glass of morning

It comes in on hypodermic frequencies

A lonely kerosene howl
As bearings sweat black against the load.
It fills the slick and heavy air
An orange hieroglyphic scrawl
Across a concrete sky

Tonight;
You wear this city like an armored shroud
Blank halogen and cataracts
Wet white ceramic tiles your skin.

AT LAST, HE FINDS THE HIDDEN LOCKS.

THE CHINESE PUZZLE CLICKS AND SLIDES BENEATH.
AS A LOOK OF HORROR DAWNS ON HIS FACE, THE GHASTLY OTTOMAN BEGINS TO
VIBRATE…

Take the core out carefully -

Hot, slippery and ticking, wound tight with dripping string
The tabletop is scarred, honey-gold
Beaded with a thousand empty eyes

In this country of little broken things

In this hollow light, dry as crematory dust
In the faces of plaster angels,
Rotting, reflected in scalpel blades...
There's peace in the slide and interlock of tiny wheels
Grave certainty, acid-etched and forged in brass

Outside, the sun crouches heavy on the arch of the sky

Swifts scissorcut the air, loop and thread and skim
But your fingers on the key are everything
The key / the smile of bone deep in the hole
The cross-hatched scars around its edges

CURTAIN DOWN.
A FINAL, DESPAIRING GROAN.
AND GOOD-NIGHT TO ONE AND ALL.