VISIONS
“I listened to music while I painted.
Since I don’t paint anymore,
I don’t listen to music anymore.
The music inspired my art.
It brought the images to life.
My paintings were
the transubstantiation
of sound into color.
Each note had its own hue.
There were Beethoven blues
and rainbows of jazz.
There were sunset orange octaves
that you had to hear to behold.
And rock, oh how it electrified my brush
like the copulations of savage gods,
how the paint flowed
like the blood of sacrificial virgins,
how it filled the canvas
with bold pink and orange Hendrix,
with the psychedelic voodoo colors
of the Night Tripper,
with ‘China Cat Sunflower’ blends
of yellow and gold.
But I don’t paint anymore.”
Black –
Lucien awoke in a coffin.
Shrouded in darkness,
entombed in primordial blackness,
in a depthless,
bottomless
void
of hopelessness and despair,
Lucien awoke.
He flailed in the empty space
above and around him,
but the world of the living was forever
beyond his reach.
He clasped and unclasped his hands in blind fear,
kicked wildly at the graveclothes
that entwined his legs,
and opened his eyes to see where he was,
but there was nothing to see.
All space was empty.
There were no stars.
There was no light.
It was the universe before the creation,
before the divine fiat,
before the Big Bang sent the colors flying
in all directions,
becoming suns and moons and earths
in infinite variety,
becoming alive and blossoming into a prism of
wondrous possibility.
It was the universe before the beginning,
a universe devoid of human passion,
a new palette,
ready to hold the paints that the creator would mix
and blend to give life to his worlds.
It was an untouched canvas,
a tabula rasa,
an invitation to human invention,
to the godlike creativity inherent in man.
Lucien tried to embrace the abyss
as if it were a dark goddess sent to initiate him
into the mysteries of life and death,
a raven-haired Lilith,
a dusky tantric dakini,
or a sultry demoness,
seductive as sin,
from some obscure cult rife with superstition
and bloody ceremonies that climaxed
in frenzied orgasmic dancing
around a smoky fire.
He tried to embrace the wanton abyss,
but it eluded his grasp.
He clawed the air in frustration.
Then,
quite suddenly,
he felt himself falling at a dizzying speed,
falling from heights of
mad glory and cosmic visions,
falling into an ever expanding darkness,
not the tragic darkness of hell,
but the small and lonely darkness of the coffin.
Lucien’s horror began when he realized
that the darkness
was the shallow darkness
of his own living death,
an insignificant darkness that was his alone.
It wasn’t the primeval darkness
of uncreated creation.
It was the darkness of the end of all things,
his personal apocalypse,
his own private black hole
from which escape was impossible.
Once inside,
his horizon collapsed into a chaos
of paralyzing nihilism.
Not a photon,
not a particle of stardust,
not a spark of light would he ever know again.
It was a universe within a universe,
a flattening out of time and space,
a realm where thought wrapped around itself,
where the end always returned to the beginning –
again and again and again,
world without end.
Amen.
Purple –
Purple is the most lascivious color.
Lucien dreamed in lavender and pink,
in lilac hues of Kandinsky colors,
in fuchsia fantasies and shades of mauve.
Explosions of purple filled his mind,
enpurpled his awareness like crushed grapes,
like wine.
Violet rhapsodies pulsed through his blood,
through his heart,
through every quivering artery
while resplendent symphonies of color
ravished his forlorn soul
and left him breathless
and dazzled
and aching for more.
Lucien writhed in his sleep,
enraptured by visions of schizophrenic angels
with golden tresses
and wings of translucent silver
that shimmered in the starlight.
Sirens with flesh like ripe plums
enticed him further into the ether
and Lucien followed where they beckoned.
They danced to the music of Venus and the stars.
Their iridescent veils swirled
like galaxies in the making,
sending out random flashes of opalescent fire.
The color of passion,
of carnal delight,
metamorphosed into
the bewitching daughters of Babylon.
Lucien was mesmerized.
Every concupiscent daydream,
every prayer to Eros,
was granted in a satori of sensual bliss
by the libidinous avatars of purple.
The intensity of the violet visions filled Lucien with
unbearable ecstasy.
The purple became dense and dark.
It was intoxicating.
He seized the nearest temptress.
He rubbed his damp palms against her soft skin,
bruising its whiteness to a sublime purple,
a purple slipping into blackness,
a rich velvet purple befitting a royal concubine.
He tried to crush her in his hands,
squeezing her ever more tightly
as she laughed mockingly at him.
Lucien’s head swam
and his blood throbbed painfully.
Her arrogance maddened him,
humiliated him,
and he fought the succubus who captivated him
with her irresistible lust.
Finally, when he could withstand no more,
when he was overcome by the sadistic appetite
of his inhuman lover,
she dissolved into the primordial foam
from which she sprang.
Blue –
Everything was blue.
Everything is always blue.
It’s just that
sometimes things seem to be red or yellow or,
in short,
something other than blue.
But Lucien had reached the place
where the blue came from,
the ultimate source of blue.
Here dwelt every possible variation of blue
from the cerulean blue of a Maxfield Parrish sky
to the midnight blue of a Van Gogh night.
Lucien drifted languidly
from one subtle shade to another.
It was an azure dream
and he breathed deeply
the fragrant sapphire-scented air.
He would have liked to remain forever
in this celestial abode,
drinking serenity from heavenly goblets
borne by the lithe sylphs of this paradisiacal realm.
He would have liked to feast on ambrosia
and the gem-colored fruits
that hung in translucent bunches
on trees of blue beryl.
He would have liked to spend eternity
listening to the feather-soft melodies
produced by the tiny silver bells
that garlanded the ethereal trees,
dulcet melodies carried on breezes
of lapis lazuli mist.
Sweet nectarous blue filled Lucien’s anguished soul
and he wept in harmony
with the blueness of the doomed universe.
Apsaras glided gracefully between the trees
like oriental odalisques,
pacific and tranquil,
as if they were innocent,
as if they didn’t know they served a universe
destined for implosion,
for the cosmic Armageddon
of everything returning to nothing,
for the ontological horror
of being returning to nonbeing.
Oblivious, they floated through the empyrean blue,
brushing against planets of kaleidoscopic colors
that lay helpless
amid the countless grains of stardust.
Worlds collided for their amusement.
Moons were as pearls to them,
gathered greedily
and strung on light waves
to adorn their slender necks.
They crushed suns into powder
and swept the golden glitter
across their fair cheeks.
Their once mellifluous voices
grew increasingly strident
and finally drowned out the delicate strains
of the music of the spheres.
Lucien wanted to cover his ears with his hands,
but the gravitational force,
which had formerly been a pale aquamarine,
suddenly weighed him down
with such heavy metaphysical truths
that he could not move.
He wanted to avert his gaze
from the liquid serpentine motions
of the beguiling Salomes,
but he could not.
Wherever he looked
an enchantress blew him
kisses of poisonous desire.
Mirrors multiplied their number to infinity.
He could not look away.
And he could not close his eyes.
The nimble movements of their dainty feet,
the tinkling of the charmed anklets they wore,
hypnotized him
so that he could not even cry out for release.
Diaphanous rainbows were drawn to them from
everywhere in the universe
and each color became blue.
The reds and yellows and greens became blue.
The violets and pinks became blue.
Everything became blue
except the blackness
that encircled this empire of blue,
the blackness that would eventually
eclipse every trace of light and color,
even every trace of blue.
Great waves of teal blue terror,
Hokusai waves,
caught him up and flung him mercilessly
here and there
in the vast ocean of blue.
One of the priestesses of blue,
a harem slave as cold and hard,
as flawlessly beautiful as a jade joss,
emerged from the seraglio
and approached Lucien.
She wrapped a finely-woven scarf
around his throat,
a sheer web of silken cobalt threads,
an icy blue snare for the shivering boy,
and promised him nirvana
before twisting it into a makeshift noose.
Green –
Pan piped a kelly tune
and the sacred woods hummed with life.
Ancient trees of apple-green
and tender young flowers
worshipped side by side like peace frogs
under the beneficent influence of the genius loci,
the great god Pan.
Deer paused as they grazed
to contemplate the holy scene
and even the godless elves were green with envy
when they saw the Pentecostal flames flicker lustily
over the heads of the blessed creatures of earth.
A mischievous gnome tip-toed up behind
an unsuspecting calla lily
and pried open the tightly closed bud
with his thick impious fingers.
Crudely, he probed its hidden inner space
and pinched its spadix
before losing interest
and withdrawing his pollen-stained hand.
The other flowers quivered like vulvae,
eager to attract his lecherous eye.
He plucked a dozen or so,
some to stroke their soft pink petals,
others to inhale their mossy perfume,
and still others to rub and grind
between his fingers half-heartedly
in his quest for idle amusement.
He discarded each without a thought
when another, newer blossom
presented itself for his desecration.
Lucien sauntered blithely through the mythic forest.
Nymphs with emerald eyes cavorted
with virile satyrs and effeminate fauns.
Gleefully giggling and fleeing in mock alarm,
they inflamed the loins of their bestial pursuers.
Even the saintly hamadryads left their leafy homes
to partake of the sacramental rites of May,
the consecrated and profane ritual
of interspecies fertilization.
Pan ogled his debauched disciples
with prurient paternalism.
He laid aside his pipe
and selected a pine-green maiden to deflower.
Her hair was an aromatic brown
and her glaucous complexion
promised goatish delight.
The verdant virgin saw her fate
in a moment of precognition.
She saw the resinous bark
and comatose foliage of her destiny
in the god’s wicked grimace.
She panicked.
Instead of running,
she was rooted to the spot.
Her lovely feet,
feet to be idolized with fetishistic veneration,
sunk into the soil
and spread like tentacles.
Her supple flesh grew rough.
Wooden and unyielding
became her breasts and belly,
her bottom and thighs.
Leaves sprouted from every orifice.
Pan had her now.
And he would have each one in turn.
Everywhere Lucien looked,
animal was becoming vegetable.
Beasts and brutes of every description
were regressing,
reverting,
degenerating into plants.
The slow patient mind of the vegetable kingdom
was finally asserting dominion.
A frightened she-faun trembled
and stamped her pretty little hooves in vexation
as her silky fur turned green.
Lucien watched in mute horror
as the sylvan revelers froze in mid-frolic
and sank into catatonic inertia.
And then he realized it had him as well.
The insidious vegetable torpor
petrified his arms and legs,
immobilizing him
as the chlorophyll
flowed through his helpless veins.
Yellow –
Dionysian lions lounged majestically
under the equatorial sun.
They yawned
and stretched their thick clawed paws
and shook their tawny manes.
The swollen yellow sun pulsed with radiant heat.
Its golden light was almost blinding.
Lucien tried to shield his eyes with his hand.
He admired the solar gods
lolling in the African grass,
relishing the aftertaste of blood,
sweet antelope blood,
savory gazelle blood,
warm human blood,
and lazily working the delicate ribbons of flesh
from between their teeth
with their long dark tongues.
Lucien felt no fear,
for his was a leonine soul
and he felt a primal kinship
with the bronze-gold monarchs,
the sun kings of the savanna.
Then the dream became lucid and Lucien could see
the cosmos unfolding at the dawn of time.
He could see the haloes forming
around the pregnant suns.
He could feel the quickening globes
of animated fire
straining to be born.
He was omnipotent,
supreme.
His solipsistic sovereignty extended
from the alpha to the omega of time and space,
from the original singularity
to the final supernova
of the whole host of apostolic suns.
He glowed with a corona of maniacal love
for the totality of existence,
an agape of egoless identification
with everything everywhere in the universe,
and a burning desire to consummate his love
in sunburst ejaculations of liquid fire.
Lucien could see so clearly now.
By the power of his pure Luciferian love
he would save the souls of heathen men
and god-fearing women,
innocent heretics
and blasphemous children.
Even the animals,
the reptiles and fishes,
would be saved.
Stones and bits of sea glass
that wash up on the beach
and every grain of sand that ever was,
Lucien would save.
It all happened faster than the speed of light.
Souls flocked to Lucien
and he devoured each eucharistic offering
with insatiable hunger,
with a searing passion
to unite all the disparate souls
into one world soul,
and he,
Lucien,
anima mundi,
forsaken and crucified and yellow,
was that one soul.
The heat generated by all those golden souls
in Lucien’s belly
was like the magma that boiled and seethed
under the earth’s crust.
He felt his temperature rising.
His skin became incandescent
and tiny living flames
danced in his hair.
It was more than he could bear.
He burned with hubris
and prayed for deliverance
from the relentless heat,
but the entire universe
had become one magnificent yellow sun,
an immense ball of fire
trained on Lucien alone.
There was no escape.
Orange –
The orange was a carnivalesque day-glo orange,
a lava lamp and beaded curtains orange,
a hallucinatory neon orange.
Lucien was in a festive mood.
This was no innocent Creamsicle orange,
no fuzzy peach dream;
oh no, this was a carnivorous orange
and he walked through it with impunity.
His young muscles were firm and strong
and he strode with confidence
through a desert of pleasure and pain.
Sometimes orange felt neglected,
so it tended to compensate by being loud and unruly
whenever it had the chance.
Orange rays of light,
luminous tangerine shafts
of the most misunderstood color in the spectrum,
flashed out of the cloudless sky,
the Indian summer sky,
the carnelian-orange streaked sky.
An extravagant overture of garish orange sunbeams
infused the arid landscape with eddies and currents
of amber-hued solace,
an elixir of Lethean vintage,
a comforting brew.
Lucien reclined in the sand
at the event horizon of time.
The coral wasteland extended
farther than the eye could see
and the apricot-colored dunes were inviting.
Obscene lizards darted across the mesa,
keen and quick.
Sinuous snakes uncoiled their feminine folds
and swam in mirages of orange seas.
Lucien’s apathy grew more and more orange.
Aztec androgynes
with punk haircuts
and painted faces
wandered lost and lonely in peyote visions of
yellow and orange and red cactus blossoms
while coyotes waited for night to fall,
waited to howl at a moon
as full and round as a Rousseau orange.
Soon the rain would come,
soon,
but not yet.
Carrion birds circled overhead,
squawking of extraterrestrial geometry.
A jackrabbit versed in aboriginal astronomy
and shamanistic cosmology,
voiceless keeper of the secrets of the solar system,
was chased and caught by an insolent wolf.
The vultures waited for the bones.
They waited with the patience of the Desert Fathers.
The rain had still not come
and the throats of the desert creatures
were filled with dust.
The orange had become oppressive.
Blind necrophiliac priests prognosticated
over the prepubescent bodies
of disemboweled boys.
They probed for signs of precipitation
in the enticing entrails.
Even the insects became psychotic.
It was a singular event.
Lucien lay on his back
with his mouth agape
and waited for rain.
Centuries passed.
He was dying of thirst.
Red –
Lucien was about to execute his final work.
He drew the blade across the insides
of each wrist,
first the left
and then the right,
with exquisite precision.
There were no false starts,
no aborted attempts,
just two perfect crimson lines,
one on the left wrist
and one on the right.
It was a masterpiece in red.
Liquid rubies bejeweled the fleshy canvas.
Touched by air,
they darkened into a rich garnet red,
thickening and blending together and
running luxuriously down his bare arms
in living arabesques.
He was bathed in the red-gold
of his escaping blood.
It was a scene of baroque and macabre beauty.
His only regret was that he couldn’t see it.