A Scanner Darkly

Inspired by Philip K. Dick's 'A Scanner Darkly'.

I drop Death and dream images

Of a vaulted room. It has me inside.

I’m a faint blur, a shadow formless,

In Nature’s big capsule of art.

‘Surrender me images’, you call. I listen

With a turning of the head, a start.

What could a girl like me do, spaced out,

Fatuous, unnerved, with a crawling within,

A spasm threatening; like a nark;

A full-blooded gargoyle, in my dreams.

The dark, toothless grin of a maniac,

The smell of his supercharge.

I slip from worlds to worlds, I see portals,

The Heavens of God.

His minions are the stuff of my trip.

I hallucinate the joyless desire of my anima.

Drop Death, I’ve been locked up,

Inside the vaulted room, with mirrors on either side.

My brain is cut into two; the uncompromising halves.

Serenade me, Substance D! I can’t tell

The difference between my reflection,

My photograph. Are we the same, the same faces,

The same sounds of a single monotone?

Or am I looking the glass wrongly,

Through a scanner darkly,

It is me, but unlike me,

A human, an automaton.

Reviews

[Sarah Conder]

You've used a wonderful choice of words in this poem! I like the dark, mysterious undertones...

[Momina Masood]

Thank you for the feedback! Means a lot.