Temple of Toyen

When I first looked in your waters
I saw only blind larvae,
spongy belugas and unlovely phalluses.
A flash of green lightning made me look again.

Your Temple of Night opened to me.
I fell through its meaty door in space
and saw you mixing your colors
with blood, semen and ichor.

You give us the dream history
of the world at night.
I rush from canvas to canvas
hungry for more and more.

I follow you through all the tides
of sleep and dreaming and red-eyed insomnia,
the rise and fall of palaces and madhouses
from the amniotic ocean of night.

I fell into your vision in a white house
in a green park with a sycamore that knows me
and a shelter for wandering poets
where the sign is a merry command.  Versify.


- Prague, September 25, 2015

Art by Toyen: top,  "Temple of the Night" (1954); bottom, "Sleeping" (1937).