where the poems have skin, a blade cuts in...

photo by Roy Green ©

bottoming out, with twenty clowns in the car

last night howling winds

carved the loose panes

into a rattle language calling me

they were saying

please hold onto something

that will stand when light ends

where we can reach you

through the glass

as you are

looking ever-looking

for answers

in strange places

I spend countless hours

buried beneath words

as if their pliability

will be new limbs

new clever eyes  

new severance pay

I am surprised by anything

found dumb enough

down enough to be

a numb-ed away pattern

a viable self loathing

I can see

it is not that beauty escapes me

it is everywhere even my own

mirror, mirror bit

from tranquil Love to invigorating

exponential explosions of it

across wide expanses

of the Universe

into increasingly smaller worlds

we find inside of atoms

between electron veils

and valence shell wails

every moment just seems

another diet of worms

to nail a poem onto

so you may read me

much like I read myself

wanting answers to eternal

and to temporary questions

questions that I have, myself

asked over and over

with nary a satisfied answer

not knowing is a painful way

to express desire

in a world without maps

and while I keep looking

I mostly stay silent

peering out of windows

for something that changes

more than my perspective,

chemistry or underlying make-up

something, I can use

to evoke laughter

at the expense

of my happiness

and a world

with nothing

but open doors

EJR ©