Another Challenge for Beleagured Californians (12 Hours)

Cards drawn: The Magician; The Six of Cups

Hour one the soft ruler of us, of us is free, at last |here in “the land without myth and the land of gander” | the wisdom of past lives, gone in an instant, a breath; 

Hour two call me Crazy Blue | as I charge into the night | outside of us plus everyone else | uncertainty the greatest gift | elephants and emeralds stuck to my feet | on this night unusually cold;

Hour three excited for the next war | should be fun | “Coercive as coma, frail as bloom”;

Hour four the house of home | extinguished hearth | observance, repose, contrition, morose | illuminated steps guide us to the instruction manuals painted in the sky | obvious only to you | which is why I need you | (I need you);

Hour five all the cards in the window moving | all activity stems from stillness | from the passive understanding | of the way you block me/lock me up within myself | powerless among the four elements given to us humans as tools to touch the world | and thrive

Hour six, defunct;

Hour seven, deprived

Hour eight the house of loss? | “‘beauty ever-young which has survived four babies’”; 

Hour nine a watery sensibility, a ruling sensibility | not quite the same as being comfortable in charge | in the realm of what he can do with his objects | he has all the same objects | emotion, presentation—comfortable with the embodiment of each | led by his sphinxes in accordance to the currents which we | cannot see [/never see];

Hour ten | ask me anything as my senses turn on; 

Hour eleven in my car the stench of sand lingers | “pretty soon…all the old will be dead” | air lingers water lingers | there’s a solidity to you at odds with my nature, those would be natures of Mercury, of Gemini | I fiddle away at rock and concrete searching | for trace elements of you in its veins;

Hour twelve the house of loss | sleep the sleep of angels, my love, flying through the sky asleep.

Cards:

Last week my partner did an extensive tarot drawing for me and I turned it into a collage-y poem. 

Now, I have no idea what the hell was going on with it. But she has a gift, I think. I don’t think much but I do think that. The spread she did was one she invented. She said the most significant pulls were The Magician and the Six of Cups. I didn’t know what to make of it and I still don’t. I read about those cards and a bit about astrology and I wrote this poem. (Regardless, it was an incredibly powerful experience.) 

Z.H. Gill was born in Los Angeles, lives in Los Angeles, and will likely die in Los Angeles.