Red Dragon Press: Books, poetry. Title: The Voice of the Image.

The Voice of the Image

64 pages (1992)

trade paper, perfect bound

ISBN 0-9633497-0-8

$10.95

About the Book

The world of dreams remains relevant in the face of the stark external realities of modern times. Laura Qa's poetry plumbs the depths of the unconscious, where the mind remains a vast cavern to explore, both through immediate experience and through the discovery and rediscovery of a priori knowledge. The unwanted aspects of our day are portrayed with dispassionate circumspection, yet the fantasy and metaphysics of life within the mind are not forgotten. Here, we can be lifted out of our temporary situations and find solutions that are beyond the ages.

Political and social masks are stripped away in the world of our dreams, the Underworld, where the truth becomes an unavoidable image. Hence, the chronicle of the spirit amidst urban and social decay is of inestimable importance, and timely. For not only does this collection of poems display the dark, and sometimes comic, life of the inner city, it also penetrates the fantastical reality of the dream world with an understanding that reveals to us the clarity of truth, bleak and beautiful.

Reviews

Meg Ferrante, The Journal of New Thought, April 1993
"... her book... is aimed at you. It's about you. About what you may have or maybe will experience. It seeks to unravel your dreams and dive deep into your physical being. To swim in the muck and unrest of your very soul."

Jane Schaul, Mile High Poetry Society, May 1993

"What a wonderful book!..."

Contents

The Chukchi • The Un-spell • Within but Not • Original Sin • We Watch, We Wait • Gog and Magog • Judgment Day • Aeon of the Child • Ash Eaters • In the Weeds • Snow Dream • The Mask of Taliesin • Descent of a Deity • Magic • Eternal Love • The Sound of the Darkness • Black Candles • Wild Child • The Promise • Bored • Sadness • Invisible Universe • Copper Mystery Stream • Pain • Fire of Fire • Reason Sleeps • Dark of the Waning Moon • Hunted • Useless • Oceans • Solitary Star • Tomorrow and Tomorrow • Eat the Elite • Corporeal Meditation • Art of the Artless • Circle of Desire

Sample

Corporeal Meditation

The rumbling of cerebral traffic,

contained within efficient walls,

bends and snaps the portal panes

like thunder in the astral sphere.

The sweat-worn son lies flat,

sheathed in a coverlet,

on white sheets, in a blue-green room,

so shipshape it smells like seaweed;

and the view is looking down,

blurred by the bare lamp that flickers

and dims, heralding the omen;

coffee spills, a cup breaks,

and still there is no rain;

the arterial flow weakens--

the tower needs repair,

short circuits send it into flames;

a city on fire, burning, then burning out.

Another spire is raised in memorial

in the center of a circular thoroughfare,

while residents no longer in their automobiles

are sealed in vaults

that stack the floors of skyscrapers,

each man in his stall,

with his name on the door.

Others are on the rooftops, hopping

table-to-table, waiting to be served.

Other Books by Laura Qa from Red Dragon Press

The Crown of Affinity

by Laura Qa

Personal Values: Writings by Uncommon Women

(with Elizabeth Croydon and Dee Snyder)

Tribute to the Hound

True Stories: Fiction by Uncommon Women

(with Grace Cavalieri, Susan Cole, Jean Russell, and Dee Snyder)