Feed the Lake
poetry
Feed the Lake
“All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. And then there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don't matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake." Jean Rhys
Beethoven went deaf
but that didn’t stop him from hearing music
or conducting his last symphony.
They had to turn him around to see
the audience standing and applauding
but what he saw was Elise
at various stages of her life
transforming into one big eyeball.
The composer and the muse straddle
its glossy white back and bob on the top
of a lake full of moonlight’s misty music.
Luis Bunuel comes with his razor
mouthing Cut! Art is born with a flick
of a wrist. The lake turns red, they go
under, passing the land of fear where
sweet flowers seduce and snap necks,
once you get your nose in them, past
the island of anxiety where you wake
in a hole and the world’s full of falling dirt,
past the archipelago of desire where someone
spiced your stew but forbade you to taste it.
A huge tadpole named Jean Rhys floats by
saying, Go deeper! Pass the land of opposites!
The lake is infinite. The lake is ravenous.
No matter your river size you must feed it.
I’m sitting on a limb of a pine looking down
at my casket being lowered in the ground.
No one’s there except for god or maybe
his advocate, reciting a list of my sins,
the worst of which is not knowing
the difference between death and life.
How to know how to live when
the instructions are non-existent or
incomprehensible. Is it too much
to ask for a choice in my own birth
or death? The next thing I know
I’m holding on to Jean the tadpole
who takes me to the surface, gasping
for oxygen when the boss says I need
your report by the close of business.
The elevator goes up.
The elevator goes down.
The elevator gets stuck.
The elevator hurts.
Beethoven is muzakked
into a contemporary human
with designer depression drugs.
The button says r.e.m.
It lets me off at Feed Me lake.
A fishing pole emerges from the depths
hooks me by the throat, tugging me
up and down, down with it.


The lake is infinite. The lake is ravenous.
No matter your river size you must feed it."
Love this deep dive, and the everloving rivers emptying into that lake. Keep swimming, Ray!!!
I always enjoy good abstract writing/ enjoyed this piece a lot