BATTERY PARK CITY

with nervous remove
i watch and wonder
how i got here.
i think i hear murmurs
of reassurance.
i can hear my
silence and
disembodied compliance.
the ceiling swims
with waves of noirish
light and shadows
undulating and lulling me.

i'm trying to remember...
the view of Battery Park City
i should see...

the water is reflecting
through glass
onto the ceiling above me.
i am not in the water.
it's cool and smooth
like leather surrounding me.
the current is getting
rough and I can't fight it.
i can barely breathe.
i can't call out for help.
i'm afraid i'll drown
if i open my mouth.

but the waves are
crashing down on me now
rocking me back and forth
violently beneath this torrent.
i close my eyes to wait it out.
it seems like an eternity.

then it all stops.

i open my eyes.
i see where i am.
i know how i got here.

i know what happened.

Reviews

[m.s.early]

out of body
displacement
depersonalization
hallucinating
the subconscious revealed in a conscious state
baffling

[Pax Analog]

Enigmatic disorientation/reorientation concisely rendered. Could be home after a bender, a twilight state recently vacated, post-coma, the stark stripped dream of existence in form itself. Quietly haunting.

[L. Edward Neale]

The world kind of turns in on itself in this one. Nice surrealism. Its hard to find the sides of this piece, like floating on your back in a large bath when you are really stoned and forgetting the bath and suddenly you are floating on the inner sea. Really in your element so to speak: water that is! if you'll excuse the pun. And you know what I just read it again and darned if it didn't seem different again like a hallucination of water on reflected surface and waves of acid rush rippling through you. Again hard to tell where one begins and the other ends. Ok gonna stop now before I burn my brain trying to conceptualise fractals.

[Bidu Ibrahim]

An interesting and intriguing piece! Good job.

[Shmoke-Sifted Heftlande..]

ok I was about to write a serious review then I read "acid trip on water bed"

which sucks cause this is an AMAZING poem and I probly would have said something cool and insightful

but yeah, the ending subtly and gradually speeds up to a nervous climax and truly engages the mind

I just like how each phrase says exactly what it needs to say, kind of like limiting your movements and slowing down your brain to survive in a situation such as you describe in this piece..well done

[Kenneth The Poet]

An intense read.

[Bare trees]

I'm being facetious, but it does sound like an acid trip on a water bed. Your depictions are very interesting and intriguing. You've certainly got a great imagination and a talent for writing.

[Igor G. Balatsky]

that is so bright and metaphoric. psychedelic… it might be anything: from the clinical death or committing suicide to passionate sex or LSD influence… it also might be your dreaming… you allow the reader to think and decide what happened. or just feel as you feel it. your poem sounds great - as a worthy vers libre should do. and i really like that.

[symmetryAsymmetry]

wonderful descriptions!
and I loved how it started out slow n smooth and flowed into a thundering climax and the final calm after it all...
I didn't get the refernce to battery park city though...is it about the 9/11 aftermath? (I did a li'l reading on wikipedia)

also, I read it on two levels...something about a dope trip or mental anomaly maybe...and deeper, about going through a tricky situation in life where every thing goes out of hand and is later reviewed and remembered...
am I right?

[Melati]

What an amazing poem. I love the way you express your emotion. You are such a great poet. I wish I could be a great poet like you.