Landscapes of the Mind - Poems

Illusion

Clocks wind like snakes possessively

around it, same as the hands make laps

on laps around the clock's face,

as another day slows to catch it's breath

and night dutifully takes its place.

Street lamps hum. People dress for bed,

brush teeth and turn out lights.

I will not sleep tonight.

The gears of my mind churn, still.

They will not grind to a stop long enough

to ease the ills of my thinking -

no trees, no peace. There is only

the infectious dark that spreads

to each far corner of the room, as the

wall clock ticks like a dormant bomb,

or my own heart beat

keeping me awake.

I will it to stop. It will not.

So I am left consumed by the fires

of time, and all that they inspire.

Must it always hurt? -

the bittersweetness of the past,

like old candy, and the pain

of the present, whiskey trailing flames

down my throat. Sword-swallower.

I'm looking at old photographs.

Here's me at four, in my grandpa's

back yard; the ends of my hair

sticking out like the wad of

electric blue chewing gum

from between my teeth -

eyes drawn asquint. A flash of grin.

Here I am again, now six, in a blue denim

dress, blowing bubbles on the porch.

Another of our old houses.

I didn't have to smile to look happy.

Suddenly, there aren't anymore pictures.

Now I only have my memories to steer by,

dumb compass. I am brought back to my room.

The dark tendrils of nostalgia dissipate,

a magician's smoke. Mind clear.

The hollow tricks of ingrown years

play on my memory, like the many rings

of a tree. Time vanishes like an adept thief.

But it gives back in what I now recall,

which is the sort of girl i used to be.