DREAM VESSELS # 27: Dark Vision salvaged DRAFT

DREAM VESSELS # 27:  Dark Vision    DRAFT

     —From a collage by Marsha Connell

 

A black ship with lateen sails

in front of the gates to the courtyard

where lions with three-pronged tails

rise on each column.

A woman covers her face

the sea is the red of bombs, of destruction.

Glistening lights of the harbor on an oily sea

the lions on the pillars who watch us

for reactions liook as if theyíre about to cry.

The columns curling upward

like serpents on the healerís staff

the apron covers her but she weeps into her hands

the sea and blood share the same origin as tears

why is she weeping?

the past and future clash

in 1990 there were 111 wars world-wide;

a typical year, someone notes.

Summer 1992
DREAM VESSELS —from collages by Marsha Connell

 

DREAM VESSELS # 28:  Oil Spill     DRAFT

     —From a collage by Marsha Connell

Two women walking over the oily sea

a necklace of diamonds

the boats pull the blue-black oil

barricades globular oil glistening

seductive oil on the rocks, the birds

in jeweled formation

the planets rise guardian-like

behind the women who walk

covering their faces

the nomadic blankets

where credo is interwoven

with the dailiness of survival

and art is not separate

but the oil, these diamonds

fabulous wealth for the few

imbalance

maybe the diamonds are frozen carbon tears of stars

A womanís face is a diamond

they fall from her hands

the Persian Sea is doomed

weíve defecated in the cradle

the tropical seas abound with life

they blossom like tribal rugs

a blanket of oil for the sea

a blanket of sludge for the shore

plumes of smoke for the air

visible from space

it took the smoke from 600 oil wells to block out the sun

sabotage of the Bergan Oil Fields

the oil slick did not differentiate

between the types of grebes and cormorants

Soldiers shooting into the dark with infrared scopes

shot down 8000 camels as ememies of the state,

what of the 30,000 birds?

What of the Syrian bear shot in the foot by an Iraqi soldier for target practice.

and the camels caught in crossfireóno exodus for them but death.

At the zoo, a giraffe bends down to eat grain from an old manís upraised hands. A call to prayer from the minaret. The desert is covered with tar.

like a vast parking lot

A boy squats by the sea, Hussain wanted to ignite the water with 4 million barrels of oil.

The turtles coming ashore to lay thteir eggs, bewildered. Nosea grass to eat.

the wading birds just die quietly in the marshes

Birds and insects, seeing blue sky reflected in the oil pools

mistaken it for water and a river of oil floated down to the coast

fresh crude trapped in the branching arms of the coral turns to asphault medusaís hair turned to stone in the tide of destruction

Summer 1992
DREAM VESSELS —from collages by Marsha Connell