Head Apollo

Found poem in discussion with Philip K. Dick.

The weight of memory festers

At the base of my neck and spine,

Boiling and bubbling as each second

Nestles like pebbles in my pockets, pulling

Me deeper into the trench of this

Ocean I cannot tread.

 

These memories are not all mine.

By reflex my lungs expand,

Desperate for oxygen. Instead

Water rushes the tired tissues

And infects my blood with its

Salted coolness.

 

Residual thoughts froth in the brine.

I do not drown. An unseen force

Nurses me. Her hands drape across

My heaving chest. I think now

The soft hand of a familiar friend

Is a greater comfort than any lover’s lips.

 

And there is familiarity in this deep.

I could think I feel God, but I remember

As Philip K Dick once told himself in Valis,

“His encounter with God was in fact

An encounter with Himself” (emphasis added

As oneness and holiness are synonymous.)

 

The soft hands release me. They begin

To pluck whisps of seafoam from

Above. “Here you are,” she says.

“Here you are.” “Here you are.”

I swallow each wave, now

As nourishment from a friend.

 

I recall briefly wanting to escape

This sea. But to escape means

To struggle, to allow more water

To pool in my body. Each recollection

Further crippling my neck, each second

Further stoning me below.

 

Truly becoming oneself is drowning

In an unkilling sea. Becoming One is sinking

In depths while feasting jet streams.

You may guide yourself, comfort yourself, but

You cannot rise.

You sink as you gain.

 

Philip, if “all history is one immortal

Man who continually learns,” must we

Fall with time, rendered immobile by

Crushing memory? Are we destined to

Become greater than a piercing

Nothing in the dark?