Edie Undimmed
by Thomas La Homme
1. Objective Desire
Down a steel shaft,
cold and hollow,
She falls
Into the euphoric sea-spill
of bone-pale
Phosphorescence--
A radiance to white out
The Big Sadness.
And the bassy backbeat
that moves her
Feet
is the pounding,
sounding
four-four
time
of a velveteen underground
Where the undead dance
With chalky complexions
and leers
like blackened craters.
Her mascaraed face pale
as a sarcophagus mask:
Arctic beautiful in an expression of wanting,
longing,
Lusting,
Lacking.
Her stare crosses the void
and steel spaces
And vacant byways
of skyscraper canyons
And asphalt paths
that web out to all
commercial points
on a
Glossy globe
Ever-spinning
with ever-rapiding
Twirl of speed-cocaine-amphetamine
Accelerations
Till all the old foundations
loosen
And fly spaceward into infinity,
leaving a smoldering molten core
Of 15 minute celebrity
--mass-produced with silk-screened
automation,
Their only differentiation:
Warhol’s
Abstracted smears of paint.
Abstracted stare under paint
That probes the endless nothing all
Her loved ones have fallen into:
One poor brother from the end of a noosed cord of hemp,
One poor brother from the metal cocoon of motorcycle wreckage,
One poor father (deviled deity)
from the incestuous embrace of
Carcinogenic tissue.
Her light shadows
To eye-silence
And her lids close
Like fleshy final curtains.
2. Subjective Entire
Opening my eyes to a new day,
I’m one day farther
removed from the day
You failed to say
goodbye.
We shared one year
On earth
(From the winter to the fall)
Though unmet
In that first-to-last time.
And I came to know you
Through the Factory films
Andy and the others
Caught your spirit in
Like celluloid amber.
And a jarred soul is still
A soul, though never
Free from consuming eyes.
And your stare across the dead
Decades holds mine
And there is a symbiotic synergy
Between us
That merges our mouths
and minds
In the in-between
Of dreams.
I will not let you die,
Ms. Sedgwick.
You shall always live in me,
Ms. Tragic Iconic.
I will not let you die.
I shall always hold you
In the warmth of my spirit.
And like you,
I have known the Big Sadness.
I have known the loss of love.
I have known the drug-deadened
Sedation of flesh-boned waking terrors
And the come-down into night-reality.
And I shall live
So you may live in me.
And I shall live
To meet you again
In the euphoric sea-spill
Of bone-pale
phosphorescence.
You shall always live
In me,
Ms. Tragic Iconic.
And our mutual tragedies
Are the lifeline that enwraps
Us and holds us together
In the warmth of my spirit.
And though you failed
To say goodbye,
I shall count the hours
Till the in-between
And say
Ciao…
For now.
