Chiang Yen Dreams Again of the Magic Brush

Through the long
Inveigling night
After perusing Ziprin
And abusing Excedrin
Enough to succumb
In greater haste
Into imperfect repose
Where I struggled to
Better compose
Myself according to the
Rhythms of receding flesh

More by way of vision
Than prosody
I summoned forth
A perfect stanza
The size and shape
Of a canister
Of coffee or rolled oats
But more translucent
A hologram in fact
A circumflex of words
Inscribed in light

Like Rubik’s cube
But rounded and mounted
On interior gears
Of allusion that revealed
Whilst grooving
With the supplest turns of
Wrist and tongue
Suggestive without leering
Of something else adhering
A further meaning
Within

Point and counterpoint
Smoothed as one
The curator of the Lunar Museum
Stands to expound
On the delights
Of space-time progressing
Along the contours of his mind
The quod est demonstratum
Of the manifold nestling moons of
Diminishing size
In a medley that outshines
The beauty of a single
Setting sun

Well nigh
Unto the vanishing point
It lingered
Whence I awoke
Steeped in the knowledge
That Time had come round
So that I Chiang Yen
Might lay claim
Once again
To the magic brush