Obviously hidden

The treasure chest is locked

of course

I cannot find the key.

Losing it

intentionally

was self-defense.

And of course

someone asked about its

contents.

Privacy excluded,

they meant no offense

to my memory.

But of course

certain things cannot be trusted

with others

Or oneself, really.

That is why

it is safer to hide

Inside.

Painting by Edward Mason Eggleston (1882-1941), 'Princess of the Treasure Isle' in Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Passages

Time

takes the toll,

giving change for our large bills

and admits passage 

but offers no return policy.

Make Time to Meditate.

Who makes time? I have an order. 

Empty. Thoughts.

Does one miss arguing with oneself

until none win?

The walls are over-crowded with imagery.

It was me-I put the elephant in the room 

who is 

holding a candle on a cloud, 

his shadow is only flat. 

Tell me again-

What is mine is ours-

With these words-

Let no thing

remain behind but a poem

After thought 

and plane shadows on clock faces. 

Binding bed

Sought intimate spaces

for self-

lost private places

for nurturing health.

Grew weary with waning

insistence,

wilted and arid, the stem

aches with thirst

the worst exposure

to lunar light

this side of mourning

the death of circus dreams.

It seems the sun disperses

its golden dust

according to an architecture

of ideal.

Beholden to the barriers molded

by hand-

curses stand as they must, in spite of us

for a time.

As last

sunsets free

the stars, placing winking faces

astronomical units apart

and fixed on never being

yours or mine.

“Our tendency to build walls is useful only to provide a starting point for self-definition, walls that contain the bed in which we are born, in which we dream, we breed and we die; but outside the walls lies Siddhartha;s realization that all human beings grow old, all are prone to nightmare and disease, and all must ultimately come to the same implacable end. Books endlessly repeat that one same story.” (“The Library at Night” by Alberto Manguel p. 229)

Artwork by Evelyn De Morgan, 'The Prisoner' c. 1908 in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Courthouse, North County Division

Under the gravity of the situation,

somber faces and the grey sky were suitable.

Walls were also reliable in their place,

one could depend on the sole purpose

of holding up-standards

and keeping apart-reactions.

The cement colored building stands unphased

and stained with gutter rain streaks

as if the structure shed a tear and smeared its makeup.

The four-hundred and eighty-four small square window panes

allow white graph paper light, tinged with green edges spill into the

Security Checkpoint.

The cage presents itself guarded.

Red hands enter through the back,

while white hairs breed in single file lines.

This is where we are all turned in, (the gates

are not pearl) they scan for sharp objects 
with invisible laser fingers.

The grey walls watch over all the pleading people,

mallets mark ballots like bass drums

with skin stretched tight over the top.

Heartbeats happen to match beads of rain on glass.
Indoors, behind dividing walls, we are all dry and

held for safekeeping in the big grey house.

Image credit by Carol M. Highsmith (Monroe, Louisianna) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.