Scopolamine: A Sequence Poem by Richard George

Hieronymus Bosch
knew this region at the far
edge of consciousness:

Pressure in my skull,
summer twilight, ominous,
I pass the threshold:

Vomiting laughter,
throat contracting, grinding teeth,
rabies, or lupus:

Faces, hideous,
are peering back from the cave-
depths of screwed-tight eyes:

Pterodactyls, horse-
headed, chasing me over
dysentery mangroves:

Wet darkness wading,
dehydration, cholera,
drowned grotesque at dawn