Pinned down

 

...perception is us

not manifest

destiny or dream

boards and images

attached.

Artwork by Anonymous Unknown author, 18th century, in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Reflection

A daughter is a distorted mirror
Image
of her mother
in a different light-

She reflects tiny scratches
caused by sharp objects
hurled at the surface
not hard enough
to break this concentration
of silhouette
and deformity of depth.

Only an Impression
too light
to stay in one body
fills the frame
out toward its beveled edges.

And all that cannot be contained
by Image is Imagination.

The daughter does not recognize
Herself
as better than
as more than
a mother could bear.

A swift movement of time blurs
the point
when the daughter draws her sword,
and the mother caps her pen.


Image credit: By Marcantonio Raidmondi (1480-1534), 'Justice personified' Engraving circa 1515-1525 in Public Domain. 

Photo-graphic memory

Obsessed with photo graphs and charts,
we point our longest sideways glance right
away
and shoot for the best, hitting hope
happens square in the chest,
stars also aim for the numbers.

Numbness by position,
this poison saps our steady grip,
an aching up the arm from the aorta.

In this contraction,
we miss the moment around the image,
the time between sight and capture
or full appearance formed
in our human haste

Roughly,
to see and to show how it should look
from our island view,
by entitling
what was then as now.

The pictures portrayed only figures,
we made out images
believing in lines like these
holding black and were definitive
made by an arrangement or
juxtapositioning.

Framed in theoretical suspension
of time to believe in what we see
as all white.



Image credit By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons.

Believing in Ghosts

A nice break 

to heal...

The real world awaits

-our authentic attention-

not to mention

(Your) Life is not on(the)line

& is most simply an Alt. identity; 

salty audience driven arrogance

boasting and posting 

egotistic in-

significancies

(please)

 

Pixelated phantasies thrive

in social (media) circles,

round and empty 

vacuum souls.

Dive deeper into delusion,

alternate versions of you illusory

packaged for others to see,  

so-Pretty-are all empty (boxes),

apparitions inside avatars

for show.

Friends, 

Floating in your mainstream

is not what it may seem

carried with the flow

surface deep on Lethes 

and Styx. 

Not only ghosts 

pass through doors

of intangibility.  

Painting by Théodore Chassériau [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Just passing through

You are going to think
I am out of my mind but
sometimes
I pretend I am a tourist
in my town....
Just a traveler passing through
time and place, spacetime and outside
myself.

I examine the flora and fauna,
trees, blades of grass, the dress
of the locals
as though I've never been here before.

I watch the people on the streets, mid-week
converse or casually pass by
with warm smiles
and think it must always be sunny here.

I see dayworkers, most of which
nice enough, don't live here.

The police are all pleasant, people
drive generously,
children are clearly safe
on the streets with all
wheels welcome-
what a world they've made here.

A parade is about to begin,
Homecoming, again.
Art murals on walls,
scenic electric boxes,
cute painted fire hydrants
let no spot
be unbeautified-what a place!

Then I see me
driving around, doing errands,
chores, walking, sitting, reading,
and every time
I think-
It is clear as day,
there is no way 

she is local,
she is not from here.
But look-
she sees me watching, 

she's the only one
aware I'm there.
She smiles,
not like them,
and is clearly miles away.




Image by Robert Payton Reid, 'A summer's daydream' c. 1896 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Versmilitude

I have 3,463 reasons
to hate me
as seen through the spectacled
looking glass
learning pupils of others eyes
believing in
All truth be told

From inside the fishbowl
a ripple effect goes nowhere
waves of distortion
roll by in wakes
blown out of proportion

To see is to know
What you Do shows
I suppose
better than what you Are...
barely there
thin as a rail
hardly frail
by contrast
and that pale glow
(if you would like to know)
ghostly ashen skin
is not so thin.

Deemed some dame or debutante
with nothing to flaunt
talent, imbalance,
withstanding-
Despite the empathetic understanding
I squeezed into the mold
(as I was told)
now my metallic blood runs steely cold.

I tremble
at your thoughts of me
and the terrible what nots you see
that I cannot spot
any resemblances.

A two-way mirror
absorbs one reflection
shattering a reality
piercing in severe observation
a practice in futility
noticing the nothings
lacking depth perception
merely a dimension of what
you thought you saw
was me
was you too.



Image Guillaume Bodinier [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. (Confession c. 1826).