Somnifères for the Egregor: A Nocturne in the Key of Simulacra and Sacred Exhaustion
The bells have ceased their weeping—
Only energetic larvae hum in the vestibules of memory.
Above us, a dome of obtuse silence;
Below, a pianist—perhaps an angel, long deceased—
recites Rainer Maria Rilke on spiral staircases
that vanish into auric mist.
There is a chair of elm—occupied not by flesh
But by a frequency, borrowed.
A spirit impostor dons your voice,
wears your tie, mimics your seraphic face,
and speaks with the authority of an egregor
Who has read Martin Buber aloud in the kitchen
while rummaging through a fridge
for metaphorical bread.
I sip rooibos cinnamon tea infused with shadows.
You, perhaps, smoke letters—
Those forgotten promises inked with a Byzantine stylus
and sealed in the wax of clandestine vocations.
We walk separately,
Yet our footprints overlap in the sediment of dreams.
A translucent opera unfolds beneath our ribs.
Somewhere, a constellation of deer gathers
to witness the final match
between sacred longing and epistemic modesty.
In "The Museum of Unmade Beds",
Our doppelgängers polish their alter egos.
We are no longer unique—
only selected,
As one selects a vintage handbag
to match a forgotten season.
Fruits decay on a decorative tray.
Their scent: amber and irony.
The still life stares back with contempt,
knowing it outlives us.
I once believed your face to be my guardian angel—
But now it flickers in the spectral bandwidth
of something vampiric,
wandering,
beautiful,
untrue.
The air itself trembles with apocalyptic indifference.
The sky turns the color of expired royalty—
Bourbon red, decadent and irrelevant.
Somewhere near the edge of a dream,
a dove collides with a corvine star,
And nothing changes.
There are books hanging in the air.
The papyrus of midnight spirals into itself.
The Whisperer's history remains untranslatable,
written in the breath of egos long since detached.
The table is set.
The porcelain is orthodox.
The serviettes—embroidered with Byzantine resignation—
await our final speech.
A small treatise on oratory
lies unopened between the salt and pepper shakers.
No one is hungry.
Only the sacred remains unfed.
You wear a hat as though to suggest
You've survived something.
I believe you.
Somewhere between mock-sacred tourism
and authentic estrangement,
We became subjects of a floral ritual—
a theatre of divine absence.
The butterflies are conifers now.
And the angels have gone impersonal.
Still—
Separated by silence,
we prepare our nightly sedatives.
A draught for the egregor.
A dream for the rest of me.
I choose divine freedom —
In dignity.
October 21 -25, 2023
(Translated from the Original Text in Romanian)