(Inspired by Terence McKenna)
Glaciers are new.
The home star arriving
later than we sensed.
Summoned. The sun
off the main sequence.
An arc out of here.
Manipulating matter, so
dominant over the earth.
A fashioned escape called
for out of nature. A possibility.
A fantasy. A question out of
the audience. A chance encounter
with a stranger.
The mushroom. Becoming symbiotic.
That long afternoon of earth. Closed
like a lump directly in the head.
But what if it is just a notion that I
can’t explain but must tell?
The big secret: male, female, and mushroom.
Wedded into us on that level. Smart. Subtle.
Using you against yourself. Presenting
the mystery of the female companion and
giving birth to what I am apart from.
Just loving beings. Part human. Part mushroom.
The symbiosis coming together, something that you
can’t make sense of but makes its own kind of sense.
Pastures.
The lost part of the human brain.
The part of us left in the field. This human flesh.
This strange human flesh. This intelligent, loving,
laughter-inducing relative. In spite of ourselves.
Seducing them by dropping their barriers.
You seduce yourself back into the relationship
with a big aahhhh. A deep breath after three weeks.
George Cassidy Payne is a poet from Rochester, NY. His work has been included in such publications as the Hazmat Review, Moria Poetry Journal, Chronogram Journal, Ampersand Literary Review, The Angle at St. John Fisher College, and 3:16 Journal. George’s blogs, essays and letters have appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Havana Times, South China Morning Post, The Buffalo News, and more.
See all his poems on Tea House here.
