A Brief Dreamed History of Glass Delusion - Sameer Saklani

i.

i swallowed a shard of glass
which grew within me
into a towering tree,
not a poison tree
but one of delicacy
& it remains to this day
bearing no fruit, turning birds away,
pressing on pink tissue
sharp and subtle
as Death’s sickle wink

ii.
sun&stormkissed men aboard
a honshin thrash to&fro
within an impossible glass bottle
which is me, made of me,
i am (rah-as-a-bottle);
their ale and piracy slosh
inside,
as they gaze up at my clear body
open their mouths,
call me Sky

iii.
Johann Becher lost his mother
exhumed her tempered body
from pure earth, cast her into
a furnace and so she emerged
an inhistera in which he wept
a wet shrine she could drink

iv.
a nobleman sleeps on a gathered bed
of hay, fine
like a snowflake set to stand
on a singular
point
for he is a pitcher
filled to the brim
with him
self,
he fears being snatched
by a night mare,
taken to a grand ball
to be served as refreshments
or worse yet,
to be poured
across the floor,
his molten naked
body to behold

v.
pretty ladies fill me
hold my stem be-
tween thin long
fingers sip dark
sherry and merlot
as gossip slips
my blood kisses
stained soft lips

vi.
Charles the beloved takes cover
under the skirt
of Aunt Berry
as four wild woodmen
burn, scream
see four flaming genitals
fall like roasting
chestnuts
&
when he emerged from that
billowing oven,
he was stiff
as a windowpane,
a crystalline
spidersweb
as flesh effigies
immolate,
Charles the mad,
forged
in the fires of Fear

vii.
i wake,
dream&real run together as amorphous butter,
dizzied and bleary-eyed i sigh, breathe relieved
that we and i and the world is glass
as glass
cannot be mistreated like love,
cannot be tasked to lift a shape of steel,
cannot be called ugly without irony,
for glass feels no shame
when it comes
crashing down