TILTING THE AMETHYST,
THE EDGES TURN TO FIRE
By Jimmy Warner
The mistress fondles her joy darkly in the form of a jewel deep-set in a clay talisman, purple with the drowned emotions of frozen desires. From the wheel of the setting she reads the raised markings and symbols of law. Luckily I am escorted through her gates, and up the pearl chain of spheres, climbing with serpents.
Provisions for the journey are clearly labeled;
earth: the flesh of gods;
water: the blood of Mother Nature;
air: the breath of a soul
and fire: the food of the waking spirit.On the moon I am welcomed by applause. I am popular there, known for my changing face, renowned for bouts of sensuality and abandon. They know me too well for politeness, my reputation too strong for praise. I am honored for mistakes that humans make, for uttering the marriage vows and making my escape. The hell of such fame, the award of my service brings tears to my mother, and darkness fans out, dimming the blue sparkles of her crystal face.
My arrival on mercury is unexpected. Sudden travel plans have caused disruption. Probate lawyers and tax men gather out of speculation, like ambulance chasers. They are meddlesome, yet insightful detectives, young and healthy, born talkers full of promises. They know me for the cloud of mental gloom that follows me on high, spilling fortunes on the ground that I am forbidden to touch.
Venus adores me with open arms,
with warm understanding, a genuine honor.
Her tongue is foreign to me,
her country full of diversity and new experience.
Everyone speaks of impossible goals with the simple ease of a cheerful 'good morning'.
On the space platform of the sun I am back
from the dead, revived like an old movie,
famous and crackling. My father comes out to greet me,
still clad in his burial suit, grinning to see me.
Standing in the boulder field of Mars,
I am besieged by screaming women driven mad by the healing arts, lonely women turned on by the idea that a soft spoken man would heal them. They tear off their clothes as they approach.I tremble in terror as jewel clad maidens enter with erotic dancing. They have prepared a sex dance in my honor that ends by re-enacting the birth of my children.
Food and wine is passed around on huge platters at the center of which lies a nude female covered with hors d'oeuvres and holding a lighted candle. Too soon, I discover that this lavish privatka Polska has been arranged by an ex-wife who enters the crowd on a flaming dragon singing, 'You Light Up My Life'.
At Jupiter station a banquet hall fills and refills with honored guests. They move awkwardly, both from gravitational strain and gluttony. Loyal business associates scurry about making small change for thousand-dollar-bills which bear my picture on them. I am hustled in and out by harried tour guides and pressed into a huge throng of travelers, each of whom is convinced in a paranoid way that we are all going to the same place.
Saturn's razor rings cut sharply into view on security monitors as I am being led to a shabby hotel room, a naked mattress, and a light bulb that swings by its cord, see-sawing the floor beneath me. To my right is a portrait of my father crape-hung in black. Around the room are pictures of interiors at my childhood homes where I waited alone hoping for human beings to arrive, somehow, even if by miracle. At the window is a silver painted radiator, a small table for one and a chair. On the table is a tin cup inscribed, 'Saturn's Child'. Outside the window is a blinking, pink neon sign which reads, Die Alone (I think it means something in German).
I am awakened suddenly, and shuffled off to Uranus. Aboard the two-seater craft I am strapped in with a reckless maniac pilot who barely misses several landmarks on take off. The instrument panel is cluttered and obscured by lucky charms and travel talismans, souvenirs and snap shots of trailer-trash relatives in various stages of undress and drunken revelry. Above the windscreen are pictures of famous rock-n-rollers killed in plane crashes. Amazingly, however, I find myself engaged in the most creative and ingenious conversation that I have ever had as we dare to barnstorm the five Uranian moons.My guide to Neptune is a pleasant, albeit slightly dithered hostess who wears an unfamiliar medallion at her neck. She struggles to tell me of its religious significance, but succeeds in giving me only a rash of impossible images which I cannot connect in any way one to another, least of all to religion. On the flight is a replay of all my dreams and disappointments, my illicit affairs, and confused marriages. In slow motion detail come the chief moments of my life when I was easily swayed and led astray. During the flight I fall asleep and dream that I am Five years old, running down dark alleys with a flashlight, convinced that I have solved all of life's mysteries.
When I awake I am told that I slept through Neptune and was brought directly to Pluto's Museum. The curator is a passionate gay man, eager to guide me through the gallery of ' frozen desires '. Each exhibit is a luscious collection of nineteenth century nudes, portraying each love affair in my life with all the expected sacred cow props and scenery looming in the background. They are bad paintings in general, painted by obscure artists and done in mindless color schemes according to obsolete portrait formulas. By the end of the tour I am feeling resentful toward my past loves. I am frozen in time, the only one responsible for all these disastrous art objects, described so intensely by a man I don't even know, who seems to know me better than I know myself.
He tells me there is a planetarium upstairs. I go alone and I thread my way up endlessly winding metal stairs remembering my schoolboy visit to the Washington monument. I think of Wanda June, back then, her soft gray sweater with red scarf tied at her neck, her poodle skirt and penny loafers. I recall her dance lessons she gave me at school and the smell of her perfumed case of forty-five RPM records, covered with pictures of rock-a-billy stars. Inside the dome at the top of the tower the real stars shine with piercing clarity. Each constellation bears striking resemblance to an old friend. So many bright friendships, larger than life. They begin to materialize and descend heavenly stairs toward me. I am surrounded by hugging people urging me to climb this last leg of the journey to the light of light. A choir sings,
" O universe, I am one, I am everywhere."
As I ascend, the light and lightness gradually turn to fire. I realize that all this time I have been staring at the amethyst, twisting and tilting around the fingers of the sex-mistress, who is both my fear and desire, and I am standing at the smeared window of a live-nude peepshow.
