Radioactive Dreams

Photo by 🇻🇪 Jose G. Ortega Castro 🇲🇽 on Unsplash

I see languid lizards vomit
Up a radioactive vapor
Which drifts in incandescences
Of song

As I scale the vast caldera
With those wisps of vapor trailing
In the path that winds its way
Down to the sea

I hear reptile voices screaming
At the children who are laughing
As they put on purple garments
In the rain

And the purple garments later
Hang in strips about their shoulders
As they rend them when their laughter
Turns to sobs

At the fishwives grimly scaling
The bright silver flanks of mermaids
Whose milky eyes see nothing
Of the sea

With uncertain footsteps slowly
Through the fishwives I go strolling
To see the fishnets lying
On the shore

There the fishermen are singing
As their broken nets they're mending
Singing songs of mermaids
That they loved

For the sea beyond the harbor
Is a green and dark reminder
That dreams are but a consequence
Of fear

And the black and vast caldera
Where the languid lizards vomit
In a moment could erupt
In liquid fire

And the molten fire burning
Would consume the languid lizards
And the children, fishwives, fishermen,
And all

Then the mermaids past the harbor
Would no longer fear the ire
Of the fishwives jealous for the men
They love

8/25/2025