Raymond Soulard, Jr. New Songs (for Kassandra) - The ...

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Dream #9
I watched it fall from star-thick space,
an unclaimed face
white-hot and alluring,
striking earth without sound or smoke
in a weedy corner lot.
I ran over and wrapped it—
oval, seamless, unformed—
in a cool flannel sheet.
A radiant, placid face—
eerily familiar for all its strangeness.
I was told to take it to a man in a suit
on the 44 th floor of the Trans-America Pyramid
to have him conduct an interview
for the eleven o’clock news.
He lifted the sheet, panicked,
sent us packing.
On a splintered green billboard
beside the Divisidero off-ramp,
I nailed up the sheet
level to the eyes of all who sped by.
The message-board ran the words
“mirage” and “redemption”
in an endless electronic loop.
I awoke eviscerated, modified,
sputtering something about
“the two-fold mystery
of an alien messiah.”
The Cenacle | 59 | October 2006