THE METAMORPHOSIS: SNAPSHOTS OF THE ARTIST AS A CREATURE OF CHANGE

by
Daulton Dickey

Part V

[Click here to read Part I, here for Part II, here for Part III, and here for Part IV]

i.

The world inverts, reconfigures itself
People split in two and merge with other halves—and transform into a newer, better people

Then the universe shifts and everyone splits in two
Their other halves morph into viruses and leap from person to person,
Controlling their hosts while persuading them they’re in charge

Viruses mingle with my shadow while I smoke a cigarette
They slither through the darkness and crouch at my feet
A concept forms in my mind,
Which forces an opening,
And the viruses leap into my head and take control

Life’s mysteries blur and vanish,
Everything fades
All questions expose their inherent irrelevance
But no— I can see the mysteries,
I can distinguish them
Or,
I could
Now they’re blurry and faded,
Possibly lost

Having regained control, I kill the virus, thus denying its only purpose: to reproduce

The Chaos in the Aftermath

by
Daulton Dickey

I’ve vilified the space between my eyes and my face
The soft-boiled sky sheds purple hues on the city,
On two clowns with pool-cue eyes rubbing through crowds clotting the streets below;
They carry a crucifix, lying horizontally,
Over their heads
And cackle the robbery of dissent

People howl
Pebbles, stones, twigs, glow and greet the opportunity to eagle through the air,
Perched on a path to the clowns,
Who ignore the pain, and the crispness of the crowd,
As they reach the city center and plant the crucifix in a pyramid of dirt erected in an intersection,
They stand nose to nose at the base of the pyramid
And ricochet thoughts snaking between their pupils

THE METAMORPHOSIS: SNAPSHOTS OF THE ARTIST AS A CREATURE OF CHANGE, III

by
Daulton Dickey

Part III

[Click here to read Part I and here for Part II]

I.

Creatures stalk everyone. Always. They haunt and infect us.

My creature, an amorphous mist,

Slithers near the ground. It merges with my shadow and crawls up my legs—and my pores absorb it. I decay in real time: my physiology weakens, my ego implodes. A supernova blasts through my skull, re-wiring me.

Every moment this creature inhabits me I lose the will to separate from it. Its lucidity comforts me. But it also breaks me, and the worlds flashing before my eyes dissolve before I can muster the energy to record them.

A creature, Frustration, consumes me. It spawns Disorientation and Confusion.

I reify these emotions the way our ancestors anthropomorphized physics. Having superimposed it on the world, I now feed on it,

And it feeds on itself.

Empire of Dirt

by
Daulton Dickey.

I can’t escape low-paying jobs. No matter how long I stare at the horizon, I don’t see mountains protruding and growing and replacing clusters of trees.

My name fades in the minds of people who’ve already forgotten my face.

The planet, a sphere of rotting flesh, drowns us in the bile of the used and forgotten—and none of us can escape it.

Patriōtēs

by
Daulton Dickey

You, to whom I’m speaking: ants and maggots writhe on a rectangle made from bones. Blood fills the gaps between them, and a square filled with bile sits in the uppermost corner of the rectangle. Each part on its own devolves into abstraction, but they evolve life when combined in this form.

This creature enchants and controls you.
It embeds itself into you and, like a virus, travels at breathtaking speak. Whether you work or don’t work, watch movies or don’t watch movies, read books or don’t read books, do drugs or don’t do drugs, and so on—you fall prey to this virus.
Then it assumes control of the host and forces it to worship the creature.

Metamorphoses

For Ovid

by
Daulton Dickey.

After the clouds parted and dried up, the sky pointed its bluish mirror at the ground,
At two people—a man and a woman—tossing rocks behind them.

They each had picked up a rock from the muddy earth near their feet and tossed it over their shoulder. The rocks arched and hit the ground, bottoms buried in mud.

THE METAMORPHOSIS: SNAPSHOTS OF THE ARTIST AS A CREATURE OF CHANGE

by
Daulton Dickey

[Click here to read Part I]

Part II 

1.

An egg stands on the counter beside a sheathed blade. It topples over without rolling and falls next to the blade, leaning against its sheath.

I grab the egg and stuff it into a carton in the refrigerator.

—Not yet, but when the time comes, we’ll use it.

I shove the blade into a drawer and fall into a lake, which has replaced the kitchen floor.

Unable to swim, I flounder and sink to the bottom.

I can’t hold my breath, so I clench my eyes and wait for death.

My concentration, in that moment, establishes silence, darkness.

“I” disappear as pure consciousness takes hold:

Not darkness, but grayness—the end of a gradient cast by a powerful and all-consuming light.

I sense it but I can’t fall into it, so I try, and I break my concentration and open my eyes.

Sitting half-lotus on my bed, I glance around the room.

I amble into the kitchen and open the fridge and the egg pops out of the carton and rolls and shatters, spilling a fetus resembling me onto the floor.

Clairvoyance

by
Daulton Dickey

Textures on its shell casting macrocosmic crescent moons,
Colored with a gradient shifting from black to gray,
The egg lies on its side, casting a shadow onto the red tablecloth on which it lay.
The shadow runs alongside the bottom left of the egg and stretches millimeters longer than the egg,
Creates a double,
A fleeting imprint of its existence onto the world, a reminder: I was here; you may not remember me, but I was here.

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Off and On the Road: an autobiographical appreciation of Jack Kerouac

Off and On the Road
or,
How I Got Stoned and Became a Literary Junky
by
Daulton Dickey.

[Author’s note: this is an old piece, written about 7 years ago. I recently re-discovered it and decided to post it in its entirety, and unchanged, i.e. unrevised.]

1.

Lee[1] blew into his hands and rubbed them together, trying to breathe life into his fingers. Scrunching his shoulders, he pulled his coat collar up and squeezed the opening at the base of his throat, tightening the collar around his neck. A smile had attacked his face earlier and it refused to retreat, and he bared his teeth as breath escaped his nostrils and slipped out of his mouth. He looked beside him, at Ray, and his smile widened.

Ray had a way of smiling with his eyes that seemed to inform his entire way of thinking, his entire worldview, and when he smiled at Lee, grimacing without showing his teeth, his eyes curled upward and mimicked what his mouth would have done—should have done—if he wasn’t so self-conscious. Ray shiver-stomped and jogged in place, half warding off the wind, half dancing in anticipation. Then he glanced at me and laughed. I was standing between them—if viewed from above we would have formed an asymmetrical triangle—and crossed my arms at my chest, burying my hands in my armpits, struggling, fighting, praying for heat to engulf me, to inject colors other than red into my hands and face.

“Man,” Lee said, “this is going to be awesome.”[2]

We stood between two houses, Lee’s and Ray’s, and looked to our right, toward the street, and to our left, toward the back alley. But no one showed up.