Thunderhead

The first real thunderstorms of the season swept across the Midwest last night. While the worst of them seemed to part and flow to the north and south of my home town, others had tornadoes and floods. 

This time of year, storms usually come in huge banks of black clouds that roll over the prairies in lines that stretch for miles. But in the summertime, they sometimes come singly, dark galleons floating in an ocean of sky.

Thunderhead

Storms never surprise the prairie,

They build up on the horizon,

Great blackening hoards of cumulus

Like the gathering forces of evil

From some old Scandinavian folk tale.

Or they travel swiftly alone--

Silver, anvil-shaped giants

Floating over their own shadows,

Muttering to themselves deeply

And juggling lightning bolts,

Sometimes dropping one.

copyright 2011

Dream Houses Can Be Nightmares

Twitter friends Johanna Harness (johannaharness) and John Ross Barnes (barnestorm2004) recently were discussing dreams about houses, a subject I find intriguing. I've read that when you dream about a house, it's actually a metaphor for  your own psyche. If that's true, I must have a very strange psyche, because I've dreamed about a lot of very strange houses.

But the most memorable was a fairly normal-looking three-story house with a large attic. I lived on the first two floors, and as hard as I tried, I couldn't walk up the wide, carved staircase to the attic. Something malevolent lived on the third floor and would allow no one to pass. I dreamed about the house repeatedly over a period of months and never was able to contain the gut-clinching panic I felt every time I started up.

Then one day at a family reunion, my father and sister and I started discussing strange dreams and discovered that we all were dreaming about the same house. And not only that, but we were all dreaming about it over and over, and none of us was able to get to the attic. 

Months went by, and every time we were together, we discussed "the house." Finally I dreamed I performed some kind of exorcism that walled off the malevolent presence and, though I still had to fight fear every step of the way, climbed the stairs to the attic. It was filled with beautiful antique furniture, jewelry and fabrics that looked like it could be worth thousands of dollars. More importantly, much of it met my needs to beautify my living space below. It was magnificent.

Several months passed before the family got together again, but when we did, the subject of the dream came up as usual.

"You know," said my sister, "I haven't had that dream for quite a while."

"Neither have I," added my father. "Did anyone ever get to the attic?"

I admitted that I had, and after thinking about it for a while, that I hadn't had the dream since. So I figured out about what week I'd reached the attic.

Not one of us had dreamed about the house since then.

Valentine for Lovers of a Certain Age

Valentine for Autumn 
(to my husband)


Come, walk the night with me,
Feel the silken touch of mist
Cool upon the warm bare flesh of arms entwined.

Come, walk the velvet darkness,
Follow sparkling fireflies through the wood
And wade the dewy grass with naked feet.

Come, stay the golden autumn night
Till dawn strokes the sky with nacre pink,
And we will walk together all our nights
Until the winer snows.

© Angela Parson Myers 2011

A Little Vampire Humor

One night I returned to the metallurgical lab after maintenance worked on the air conditioning. They'd left a ceiling panel ajar, and from the darkness beyond, I heard a sound like raspy breathing. Alone in the office because I was the only technician on duty, I hesitated before I walked under the opening, thinking, "In horror movies, this is where the monster drops down out of the ceiling behind its victim." After I worked up courage to continue to my desk, I wrote this "poem." 

    

Midnight in the Met Lab

Vampires live in the Met Lab attic.

I know.  I've heard them there

When I come in late at night

And catch them unaware.

I've heard their raspy breathing

As they lurk up in the dark,

Prowling through the ducts and pipes

To find an easy mark.

I've heard their footsteps slowly

Treading down the hall,

Past perchloric acid

And ISO butanol.

I don't know why they spare me

As I tremble all alone here.

Perhaps no one's told them

Type O's the universal donor.  

copyright 2011

Building Trucks

Steel plates, beams and castings come together in the factory to form assemblies, then frames, and finally trucks. It always fascinated me to watch it happen--plates and beams moved into place by fork trucks to be bolted into assemblies, assemblies hanging on chains from overhead cranes, gliding slowly through the air, until all met at the welder's station. Some of the trucks they made could carry a 400-ton payload. I wondered how the welders felt, holding the power to make such an incredible machine. 

Building Trucks

This skeleton I shape

Will soon be clothed in strength

To haul a hundred tons of stone

Gouged out of the mountain.

Now it hangs in pieces

Bound with chains,

Hollow pieces revealed

Joints unfashioned,

Awaiting the touch of fire

From my hand.

copyright 2011

Ghost in the Factory

The factory was never quiet--not even at night when much of it was shut down. Even earplugs didn't block the constant roar of the massive ventilation system. Its noise became a new kind of silence by drowning out all other sounds--a footstep, a sigh, the rustle of clothing--and with the lights dimmed and a mist of weld smoke swirling slowly up to the ceiling before being pushed by fans into the night air, some areas were almost eerie. So when something a little odd happened, especially more than once and always in the same area....


The Ghost in Subrail Assembly

Alone,
Friday midnight,
In that silence
Of factory's resting roar,
Through lingering twilight haze of welding smoke,
A flash of white seizes the eye.
The head follows too slowly--
It is gone.
Then gooseflesh on neck, arms,
Finally a feathery touch,
Fleeting, gentle,
At waist or shoulder,
Almost a caress.

Nightwork

Before I became a corporate communications specialist, I actually did use some of the knowledge of welding I gained at great loss of dignity and confidence (YOU see what it's like to have a spark down your shirt), doing ultrasound checks of welds to make sure they had no flaws. I worked second shift and sometimes had to stay over four. A casual comment from a third-shifter one of those nights led to this more traditional, rhyming, poem:

Third Shift

I lay beside her briefly before I left for work tonight.
She didn't even know when I arose.
I crept into the hall before I turned on any light,
And silently slipped into my clothes.

In the room across the hall the baby sleeps
In the glow of her Cookie Monster light.
A dream of breast-warm milk moves her tiny cheeks
As I walk out alone into the night.

An empty tar-dark highway leads me miles away
Into a world of noise and fire and smoke,
Where I carve steel into parts for unseen trucks,
And dream about my wife in bed at home.

copyright 2011