In the Third Sleep

by Ellen Chang-Richardson

(for and after Kay Sage, 1898–1963)

 

 

I drape apocalypse in my name

shoot myself through the heart

mute turmoil in sleep abandon

 

dream archive	travelling loops
symbiote	symbiotic
travelling loops	dream archive
rail lines	without end
travelling loops	dream archive
farm lands	barren
travelling loops	dream archive
door ways	ajar
travelling loops	dream archive
clasping	abandon
travelling loops	dream archive
grass lands	without end
travelling loops	dream archive
concrete	depressions
travelling loops	dream archive
no difference	no difference
travelling archive	dream loops
symbiont	symbiont
travelling	travelling
travelling	travelling
travelling	travelling

 

we drape apocalypse in our name

shoot ourself through the heart

mute turmoil in sleek abandon                          :|

 

 

In the Third Sleep, We Will Converge. After the Next Revolution, We Will Stop Screaming.

by Jade Wallace  

(for Kay Sage, who went quiet on January 8, 1963)

 

Like echoes we are 

 

 

alone in the desert.  

 

 

Oracles look at our landscape

 

 

and see how we will die.  

 

You in your pillbox, 

 

curtains drawn;

me in mine, 

 

watching the radio antenna 

shudder your voice 

over barren air.

 

Copper circuits our days,

a corn snake vibrating 

between us. Our days are 

dunes we have been thrust upon.

 

Ozymandias looms, Colossus leers, 

and like ants we are invisible 

in shadow, waiting for night 

to lower the shades 

of cypress. 

 

Nothing lasts, you say;

Nothing lasts, I agree.  

We watch for birds rising 

unruly against the sky—

the infinitesimal feather 

that will break our horizon.

In the Third Sleep (Beep Beep)

by Mark Laliberte 

(after Kay Sage)

(i) 

Horizon for sail: an anchor! 

Y-axis roared in like an engine; 

fair swan whose ribbon has fallen, 

root-routed along the factory track. 

(ii) 

Oar or orgasm, unmoored! 

Erection, the insertive partner; 

both miracle and curdled monster, 

a cure for a lump in the throat. 

(iii) 

Behold the inquisitor’s soft anvil! 

Icy penitentes pray to fallen cones, 

shame dunce-running their ritual; 

a search for acme without rancor.

In the Third Sleep; or, The Hermit Sage Relates the Quest as Told Him at His Lodge Near the Spring in the Forest by Sir Kay the Seneschal Returning Gaunt and Wounded Toward Camelot

by A. F. Moritz 

(after Kay Sage)

It was a long trudge

the straight way perfectly

straight with various dreamily

winding traces

streaking that flat pounded

path of a material

unknown to science he said

snaky threads or veins or rills

as if of fresh blood

running before them

but it couldn’t be fresh

it lay there so long

no matter how far

they trudged no source

no wounded side

of any animal 

appeared there were

no animals no matter

how long they trudged 

if it was blood it had

to have dried up

long ago they could

have touched tasted

if the maroon on their finger

whorls was sticky like

menses or dry as the old

saying says as dust but they

refrained they were

afraid

         though it was in fact 

a long trudge they

took on the straight

way there wasn’t much

there they ever came to no 

coverts giants caves chapels and it’s

over now yet somehow

remembering it they remember

they don’t remember it they

never made it it’s

the it’s yet to come

it will still happen to them some

day they saw then but now 

they were going to 

rest after it relieved having

survived were going to

pant silently so they slept and

waked with me here maybe

three times and then

passed on they have

come through as the 

poet said he told me and

told me

            there were

sheets or sails there something

at least collapsed clouds

that fell and smothered

the garden umbrellas a sea

breeze suddenly folded

and their daiquiris are

inside there unreachable

the nonexistent intestines

of a school child’s 

costume ghost we

truly did survive it though

he said we yet might not but

never fear it feels beside

this well that all will be

well and all will be well and it was

beautiful at least thank

goodness for that beautiful truly

there in the

unmoving wind 

and light and dry so

at least it proved

the real

existence

of the three universals

Thomas mentions and since

we have to agree on that much 

the fourth is

also proven 

unity

        but we saw

nothing

In the Third Sleep

Beatriz Hausner

(after Kay Sage) 

                                              

In my dream I see myself wandering 

inside the third sleep, its soft surfaces

are a skin covering the still body of night

illuminated by the moon, now full and bright

behind the curtains that conceal it. 

 

Your ghost approaches, its presence visible

to me only, standing behind the rigid sails

of the enormous nave now stranded in the Atacama

desert. "The stillness is about to brake,” 

I hear a voice say. I realize then that

I am not alone. I walk into the longest shadow

and feel myself in embrace with your absence.

 

“All is well,” I say, “go ahead, break the spell,

for I have accepted your nonattendance.”

 

As I turn my gaze towards the horizon, I feel

a strong gale pushing the entirety of the space 

forward, away from stasis, into motion and light.

 

February 8, 2026, in San Andrés Huayapan, Oaxaca.

 

In the Third Sleep

Lillian Nećakov 

(after Kay Sage)

you asked me what I saw
fairy fingers wing-lifted out of the filament of mycelial dreaming
an eternal unheard murmuring from the root brain
witch butter
middle memory, pixie, wild mother, placenta
animal, foxfire, spirit
hexenringe, devil penis
Alonkok – mushroom mother of all things
stillborn sky
aisling
crematorium
crow bone
dog bone
some bizarre genius
divination
the ever shifting nowness
shame.