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

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.

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.

Three Short Parables

by
Daulton Dickey.

I.

For a brief moment, no longer than ten years, which wasn’t much, all things considered, the city seemed on the verge of greatness. Nestled at the mouth of Lake Michigan, it had served as a portal for steel manufacturers to transport their goods to and from Gary and Chicago, both voracious consumers of raw and processed steel. Houses bloomed in fields until no fields remained. Streets and sidewalks, buildings and stores and factories filled the city. The leaders of industry diversified, and soon a Pullman boxcar manufacturer popped up. By the lake, a cough lozenge manufacturer erected a simple, box-shaped building. The city boomed, as people would say. Incomes increased, and along with it the accoutrements concomitant to disposable income: pools and swings and cars, some excessively luxurious, and general stores packed with disposable goods, all of which people devoured, people looking to fill their lives with evidence of their squandered time. Then voodoo economics and global trade deals crushed the steel industry, and the port withered and died. Chasing jobs, people fled. Poverty replaced prosperity. Drugs and alcoholism, crime and violence, anxiety and depression and suicide scarred the faces and fattened the bodies of everyone left to rot in the city. Paint on buildings and signs and fences chipped and faded, and concrete cracked and broke. Gray replaced color. The world seemed to dim. Every once in a while, sometimes twice a month, the sky over the city cracked: blood and sulfuric effluvia drenched the city. The poor bastards buried in the bottom-most levels of the social strata, left to rot when the wealth of the middle class fled, watched as the faces of their friends and loved ones drooped. No one understood the affliction. Doctors hypothesized neurological disorders possibly caused by an ecosystem poisoned by decades of industry, but they nixed the neurological argument when faces melted and slid off and merged with the flesh on chests or necks or stomachs or arms. Something else was clearly at work. That no one seemed to notice or care, that doctors only treated it with anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication didn’t evoke questions from anyone passing through the city. Most people, those with money who passed through town, dismissed the affliction as a problem relegated to the impoverished. In some way, people argued, it was probably their fault–maybe not directly; perhaps it was the product of poor upbringing, or genetics. At any rate, people said, there wasn’t much use in worrying. ‘My life’s good,’ one traveler said, ‘my face’s intact; why should I worry?’ The old woman, who lived in the abandoned post office, known to everyone in town as a ‘crazy witch,’ laughed when she overheard the traveler’s apathy. ‘The way things are going,’ she said, ‘the sky over every city will crack, and every face will soon droop and melt.’ The traveler ignored her. Everyone ignored her. And when the sky over cities around the country–around the world, even–cracked and bled, and faces drooped and melted, entire populations ignored the problem, pretended it didn’t exist, by focusing on alcohol, drugs, sports, and pop culture. ‘I mean, really, there’s nothing to worry about,’ a local community organizer said. He was a prominent billionaire, face intact, who lived in a neighborhood enclosed in a dome and often acted as the voice of the people. ‘This is something that happens,’ he said. ‘It’s important now, it’s absolutely critical, that we carry on with our lives. We as citizens must continue shopping, go on vacation, go to college, accumulate as much debt as is needed to help our struggling economy. Faces change. Yes, some even melt. But it must not prevent us from living our lives, from raising our children, from playing our part in maintaining the economy.’ Footage of his speech played on repeat on news broadcasts around the country. Few people expressed alarm when his cheek twitched and his eyelid sagged mid-way through the speech. Sometime later, he retired from public view.