This Atmosphere by Jason Kish

"Ei Thanelchen", erwiderte diese, "weißt du das noch nicht? Das ist ein böser Mann, der kommt zu den Kindern, wenn sie nicht zu Bett gehen wollen und wirft ihnen Händevoll Sand in die Augen, daß sie blutig zum Kopf herausspringen, die wirft er dann in den Sack und trägt sie in den Halbmond zur Atzung für seine Kinderchen; die sitzen dort im Nest und haben krumme Schnäbel, wie die Eulen, damit picken sie der unartigen Menschenkindlein Augen auf."

---- From Hoffman’s Der Sandmann

She has blackberry eyes and I am thinking.
I am thinking about her. About her
Staring at a summer sunrise, but in
Autumn with a naked heart. And,
My heart is beating and she is on her bike.
And her heart is beating. It is near the end

Of the month; I've changed. I find
More leaves in my mouth, all dead.
I am mystified. I feel old: Groaning,
Rusty shoulders, heaving like the steel bones of
Enchanted city-workers. They are building
Expressways of misery, while the buses
Push through the laughing city.

"Are you alone in your room? Are you
Sighing? Are romantic words falling like
Manna from heaven? Is every breath so sweet?
And, like love, will it never satisfy?"

I see the dark suns, the wheezy desert,
With a caressing ocean, exhaling
Awkward hymns. Do not look.

I scratch myself until my teeth bleed.

Here, the Sandman and Corvus feast on
My madness while I sleep. My dreams,
The unknown pockets of shady
Inlets, the images that fly forward
Like hate. I go in and out of
Unconscious modes, expressing, illuminating,
Fading.

Where is the sunshine,
Like gold, filtered through dreamy ecstasy?
Where is this world, the manna -- you
Leave us starving, unquenched, hateful.
What are the answers to my questions unasked?
Is it animals into men?

I got this wrong
With arms once like a tall growing tree,
Now, with leaves falling from my mouth.
My body, a figurehead, not flesh, not steel.
On the desert sun I feel the scratch of raven wings.
From their hungry half-moon, the bird people sing.
With their invisible eyes we stare like
Apollo, into space, an angry stare.

On the horizon, in the firmament I see
Another sea-creature staring at me, with
Her soft, serpent-like eyes,
And right at sunrise under her gaze
Manifest, I morph into her urchin,
With rounded, spiny spikes that will
Crackle like the fire in the tire on her bike.
And I will wiggle and squirm from her racing dreams
And caw my love with my deep fishy breath…