Muse: An Elusive Dream

Muse: An Elusive Dream

by Armando Ortiz

From the stage where she performs she hears a sea of voices, I am just another set of eyes, but she moves for me. Though my body gets lost in the crowd, becoming invisible to her looks, the show is meant for one only.  Dancing, like the birth of water, moving across the stage, wrathful like an angry Hindu goddess, engulfed in a sea of purple light and green shadows, she gives an ecstatic performance that hypnotizes the senses. The right shoulder is decorated with the ancient Mayan hieroglyph of Ah-pook -she is a natural mystic, and moves with the music like a heron- in slow motion, with hips that sway left to right. Her dance; a passing mist, a remembered nightmare; is that of an ancient courtesan dressed in red silk, and with high pitched hollers that make you awake life. Her hourglass figure quickens the heart beats of passing life, making contact with the universal time clock. Her waist bends inward, melting into one sphere. I imagine her pale warm hands becoming a bed of powdered feathers and her black hair having the scent of jasmine flowers. She lowers herself as water, with the force of roaring rapids, every night being baptized by a million eyes, while their tongues explore the contours of her soul. I close my eyes, and imagine I am in her, creating an aura that protects her from other eyes, but wake up reaching for her thighs, only to find dead air within the blankets, smelling her scent, and the mind calls out her name.

I want her to see what my eyes have seen; orange cream sunsets that bring tears to the eyes, and take her to the edge of the city where the ocean meets land, and remove her from the sea of thirsty eyes. Happy with life, we lose ourselves in the wilderness of surprise, but her mourning voice haunts these memories. In my mind, we hold hands and stand by the coast of the city, where the sun dangles above the desert mirage. There we see waves of dizzying spells, with waters swaying to the language of our youth, like endless roller-coaster rides, with continuous ocean signals of distress, unfiltered with a mind of bliss. But I awake from my dream state and open my eyes to the now, and drown in the wine glass of time. Familiar and mysterious glares turn into dark caves of unknown silence, as we search into each other’s eyes only to discover that sweaty unions can save us, but we travel on single lane roads. Making it drizzle with the few papers I have, I bring her to me, but she is not here, but there, somewhere else, in a shared mind.

With her, we can turn the pages of history, and with ease the war dead are read, but soothed by the song of her whispers and calmed by the warmth of her milk. Philosophical executioners climb the walls of our passions, and our actions are excused by the contradictions we live, as we make flickering lights that purify us in judgment. We find shelter in the divine grace of our encounters where nightmares turn into swan dreams, where agreements turn into sour promises, and flower arrangements wilt before our eyes. Her voice soothes away reason, as the world sinks into an ocean of chaos and yet she can only be there to listen to the haunting nightmares of the self and of the visionary travels of my mind. She transforms into the bird that flew beside my car on an Oklahoma highway, free to do what it pleases and floating away towards the wide fields. Our bodies are vehicles of chance encounters and each one is the captain of their vessel.

She dances, like a young and illusive iguana, shrieking at the sight of spiders; her feet appear to be touching hot embers, moving hither and thither from my seat. Her waist moves like a drunken hula-hoop dancer, and stops; quickly turning like a hen searching for her baby chickens, dropping down and covering them with her warmth. False promises float along the stream of time, and movements become permanently frozen in our memories. Childish games stay at the sandbox, while physical battles end in bed. Trust is laid bare on the hand of time, and every turn of the page reveals an untold truth. We pinky swear to be honest and true, but when truth appears glances become stares, and words become the hinge of the door to unknowns. We enter the dens of unseen dreams, and live fantasies only to emerge with an unfettered hunger for the impossible. With every rise of the moon and with tired breath, I lay praying, to recall the sound of her breath, and clear away the tears of disappointment. The bite that poisons will heal and we will rise to another day still.

Like the moon, she hides behind grey clouds, and the blue sky is her backdrop. The lonely city is our playground. I try to grab hold of those memories, but like water, can never be contained.  We don’t deal with game pieces or meaningless games of chances, but with animate beings of action. All this pretentious talk of this and that is worth pennies, a bunch of frivolous thoughts, but I'm left with the lingering taste of her timeless performance where one sways and another dances. What are the chances of igniting romances with these elusive creatures that in dreams return and with every closing of my eyes relive their dances. Walking on the water of sleeping dreams, while sinking under the pressures of this living day, her presence is like a gentle stream that takes me down life like a piece of golden hay.