Reconciling Myself to the Idea of My Complete Isolation

RECONCILING MYSELF TO THE IDEA
OF MY COMPLETE ISOLATION

The approach to the other, if the other
had a human voice and spoke words
was like becoming a spinning top unspun,
a paralyzed potential force unrealized,
the string wrapped around, but the top
never tossed. The painted wood, red
stripes on a yellow ground, held in hand.
The hand trying to comprehend the wood
Under the bright paint, to communicate
with wood grains, failed,
and to palliate the hand
became the desert dream of an eclipsed moon.
After the solace of a long silence, I sensed
that something was concealed inside the air.
like in all transparency there was opacity.
This hidden something was looking
for a ladder to come down from a cloud
and return to its origin. I saw this something
was my lips. The lips in spatial suspension
and disembodied metamorphosized me into
The Hurdy Gurdy music of
a white sausage German town;
There, stallions ran unharnessed away
from a life of pantomime.
My lips of music, become nostalgic,
watched through a wall
Oleander flowers spread over peacock feathers
on a bed.
The pillow case had an embroidered Medusa
with her red hair spread towards
the pink fringed edge.
I became clairvoyant
saw in yellow rooms
There were love chats between dead stars
and street lights.
I said “Hello” to my face reflected
on the dark waters
of the sinkhole by which I stood watching
the earth’s dark, underground waters flow.


Duane Locke

Posted over on The Hold