Misshapen Metaphors
Holding to your undamaged head
a weapon you fail to recognize
exhorting your damaged self
to write a short precise poem
the shorter the better, a succinct prayer
and take a long, leisurely walk
to the end of the endless road
taken or not, address smudged
then write an obit for a stranger
and a love poem for a forgotten celebrity.
At the end of that long, leisurely walk
more like a Sunday stroll from better days
you look at a poem shaped like a scream
write an obit shaped like a love poem
and can’t recall when you corrected the spelling
or shaped the syntax into a succinct prayer
having lost grip of the misshapen metaphors
encasing your aloneness in merciless words
resembling that unrecognisable weapon
that turned your existence upside down.
Detainees
They met in a long line
of pain and distress
both wearing face masks
hers an enigmatic design
his a bleached-out sky blue
hiding turbulence
he is transported by her eyes
the colour of his hometown
she finds his eyes sad
the colour of her past
she speaks in a language
he cannot comprehend
he speaks in a language
she fears
a guard orders “quiet”
he complies
she speaks her mind
led away by the guard
he follows her
in what might be love
coated in mystery
and delusive escape.
The guard returns
the line longer than before.
Quiet, quiet, quiet
the guard shouts in a language
without mystery or escape.
A Mystified Magician of Beginnings
It is about to happen
about to be
about to take form
either to caress or strangle
hard to grasp the words
as it is about to happen
about to be a beginning
about to be an end
it does depend on the words
and the utterance
of what is about to be
there you exist
against the past
words up to your neck
and rising without consideration
in a message of decay
foretold or forestalled
your agility, love of beginning anew
caught in the shackles of time
even if you say timeless shackles
a mystified magician of beginnings.
