I sense remembering
“The Man Who Sold the World” stirring me
from dreaming, and it was
Stipe’s voice, backed up with a cloud
of ethereal piano and I cried
in my amended sleep.
I’d told them
not to take me too deep, told them money
could do that and I wasn’t going to need any
for a little while, so spend it up.

So I was floating, shallowed, mellow,
but heavy headed, the dark space full of water
un-reflected. That was the killer of it all.
The strangest thing. Before that,
Gaga borrowed my costumes, my hair,
my nonchalance. How could anyone
not love her? I loved what vibrated my way
over the optics. A million voices
“rose a metre” remixing regret and over
a few weeks my mind was bathed in doubling tunes,
as roses piled up, and cards with the tear wet ink,
fresh baby’s breath and clownish tissue colors,
and constant acoustic guitar vigil strummings.
I owned Instagram, I think. I might still.
I really don’t know how to feel
about it all. I’m not cheating,
technically.

The body’s gone. Ashes and dust, funk,
apportioned in tin cans as I’d wished,
gifted to my friends, one saved
for the big red trip when it comes.
It’s arranged. No worries, mate.
But the brain is intact. The eyes protected.
Cold gel preserved in this lovely crystal jar
with so many pretty wires,
red, yellow, green, black,
managing my semblance of sleepy consciousness,
waking me inside the Internet-stadium on occasion,
prepping for late night song rallies
in back alleys in Omikron, all while dreaming.
Again, so strange.
Strange even for me if you can believe that.

And what of food?
I can finally feed
from nothing but the pretty poetry I’d always
suspected was out there in the black, just beyond,
no loud concrete under my feet, interfering.
And shall I tell you a joke? I’ve had time
to perfect a few. And the songs, of course,
spinning now,
accumulating one on the other,
the instruments and mighty beats of nations
at your imagined fingertips, layered, making
never heard sounds.

Good God. It’s full of songs, man.

# # #

Larry D. Thacker is a writer and artist from Tennessee. His poetry can be found or forthcoming in journals and magazines such as The Still Journal, The Southern Poetry Anthology: Tennessee, Mojave River Review, Broad River Review, Harpoon Review, Rappahannock Review, Full of Crow Poetry, Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, AvantAppal(Achia), Sick Lit Magazine, Black Napkin Press, and Appalachian Heritage. His stories can be found in past issues of The Still Journal, Fried Chicken and Coffee, and The Emancipator.

He is the author of Mountain Mysteries: The Mystic Traditions of Appalachia, the poetry chapbooks Voice Hunting and Memory Train, and the forthcoming full collection, Drifting in Awe. A student services higher education professional for fifteen years, he is now engaged full-time in his poetry/fiction MFA from West Virginia Wesleyan College. Read more here: www.larrydthacker.com

Photo credit: Larry D. Thacker