i'll never be a poet

dementia

bruised knees aren't so cute anymore
when your joints are fissured beneath
and your jump-skip-run is now
an asymmetrical hobble-shuffle-pain

bring me a tele-micro-stethoscope
to peek into your mind with, please if i may?
what lovely reels loop through your dimmed theatre
what spotlight falls on actresses dancing round
waitresses, nurses pandering condescending-
i see, you're not a baby, oh precisely not, of course!
oh dear, oh dear.

brought you to the chinese doctor
he says you've lost your mind.
that memory translates to intelligence
memory to to capability of thought, of reason-
and now your fiery heart takes over instead
licking flames curling tongues are your reins

-BUBBLE LENS SWIRLS; PANS,
VORTEX IMPLODES-

with the night comes worry
the thought-eating isopod's eggs
i hear its larvae children whispering circles
erasing neurons line by line, nerve by nerve, cell by cell
my eyes ask the peeling ceiling:
is this how you go?
dark wrings its blunted claws into my wet heart
draws out catatonic seizures of sadness, black fire
roaring through skull chasms (the isopods are immune), eye sockets
i clutch the pocket of air in the crescent moonspace of bent torso
the last fizzles of whispered lines before they
go in the dulled morning light.

i'm sorry
the memory space...
...
no more.
not good.
old.

it's okay.

i'm sorry.
i don't know.
i don't remember.
i'm sorry.

it's okay.

no good.
i'm sorry

it's okay.

it's okay.