Three Poems: ‘Ping’, ‘Ariachne’, and ‘Dissolution

Gustavo Alberto Garcia Vaca,

Post-Apocalyptic Waste. Edited by Steve Asselin, Matthew Crofts, and Janine Hatter. Pages 255 – 257 Download as PDF

Gustavo Alberto Garcia Vaca

Ping

dark, and fire

this, the outlet
this, the media
an intricate immediacy

the murmuring woods
the owls in the aether
the cataracts of endless, unknown currents

ascending vaporous ledges
lightning rising from the east
upward in the intermittent sky
sinking stars
accosted continents
flailing forests

transfigurations
threshold
the shallow river / the gold-bug / the sycamore trees

chasms
climbing, clinging
caution – across the other peak, the ruins of an abandoned structure and its clarified voices

Ariachne

all inside

they say that we are all inside of the labyrinth
and that the labyrinth extends across the width of the Earth,
that we are all trapped within the labyrinth’s high walls, with no way out

they say It will always see us,
with Its darkened vision
they say It will continue to feed on us, into Eternity,
until we are all devoured by the monster that was spawned
from the abyss of our emotions

they say that this plane of existence
is an extrapolation of Daedalus’ failed construction
and that we are all doomed to walk these innumerable winding pathways
until It finds us,
until the inevitable destruction of what we call ourselves –
“rational”
and
“aware”

but I know there is more –
more to this twisting land than what we can see,
more to what It feels,
more behind Its eyes

I know there is purity inside of It
I know because we are born of the same womb,
we are of the same blood,
but Its eyes are not like mine –
It sees only confusion in stone and mirrors,
It sees only winding, dim endlessness

I see light across the labyrinth
I sense waves beyond the echoing chambers

I know this gold,
this brightened thread,
is the solution

I know that It can be lured into the light
and that It will walk,
on its many limbs, following this thread
into the reality beyond Its violent, dysmorphic dreams

And Its eyes will be illuminated
by the shattered impossibility of Its own existence

Dissolution

After a blankness –
five phosphorescent circles sift from out of the sky

The world seems to be renewed
and from its distant wastes and dark places,
a flow of colours –
charged by the five phosphorescent circles

And the carven rims of those glowing circles enshroud us

Distances are now reflected,
time is refracted,
ice sheets dissolve
and transform
the planet into a vast abyss

A pit,
a maelstrom – unnamable, unsearchable

An isolated point
in a formless infinity

Through noxious air and piercing wind, twilights flail

Within blurring luminosities of the abyss –
words,
language itself,
crumbling

The miasma of utterances,
disembodied ideas,
vaporous intentions –
dissolving,
dissolving…

About the author

Gustavo Alberto Garcia Vaca,

Gustavo Alberto Garcia Vaca is an interdisciplinary visual artist/writer and arts educator. His artwork is in the Collections of MoMA New York, LACMA and the Bibliotheque Nationale de France. His writing has been published in literary journals and publications including the online speculative fiction journal Strange Horizons, the literary journal Bilingual Review and the comic/manga magazine Shonen Jump/Aoharu. Gustavo collaborates visually with Detroit Techno producers Underground Resistance and Jeff Mills, Dub producer Francois K, art director/graphic designer Hideki Nakajima, graffiti painter Man One, comic creator Kenny Keil and others. As an Arts Educator, Gustavo creates art experiences for museums and arts organizations. Gustavo holds a BA from Hampshire College, Certificate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Certificates from the Architectural Association London and is currently a MA candidate at California State University Northridge. Gustavo’s website is: http://www.chamanvision.com