Write a poem based on “Seductive Fantasy” (Sun Ra and his Arkestra).
(Prompt by Maureen Thorson)
Out of the universal midnight
creeps a neon specter.
(An explosive amoeba,
a colorful bacterium.)
Dancing along
midnight black
flora and fauna
in Technicolor rainbow hues.
(Straggly tentacles swaying
as if by a silent breeze.)
With a ball of lunar wax
floating in the heavens,
life animates itself–
planets rolling along
like bowling balls
down a cosmic lane,
human bodies leaping out of
electrified skeletons.
A shock of color
(laser-bright pyrotechnics piercing
against midnight hues).
This is creation
under the influence
of psychedelic mushrooms
& papers placed on your tongue.
Plants burst from the earth
(gigantic enough to consume you
in your entirety in one, huge gulp).
A clam-man snapping his jaw
(open and shut,
shut and open)
tugs along his yoke–
a burden all of humanity has to
carry.
A living, breathing sculpture roped & bound
wants to soar beyond the midnight black ink,
desires to break free of their tethers.
Bubbling beneath the sea,
the world is still
in creation.
New Orleans is submerged;
its jazz & zydeco performers
play on.
(Singing for the fish and the algae.)
Shapes drift past like Cubist paintings
and abstract art,
transforming into Warhols and Lichtensteins
(and flesh-and-blood people in their own right).
Life began on another planet;
perhaps it started on the moon.
We are all lunar children,
learning the collision dance of the cosmos.
Isabelle Palerma 