Thomas Wells Poet Imagism

Fun House

I saw the faces
of dolls.

Pink cold dolls,
       blind frightened dolls.

Dolls with round uniform
                            shoulders.

Curtains hung everywhere like
skin,
        I spread them like lips.

Through the window,
              it was us in a cave.

My children were chewing on cereal.
With hearts of dough,
              their minds were softer than clay.

I reached into the damp hole,
             touched the unabridged volumes,
the pages packed with lies.

I reached wanting to save
                                  them.

But my fingers were frost bitten
                                     with rage.

The throat of my brain
                   swallowed me.

Each step I sank,
              shadows were ink in my clothes.

Each word a vinyl toy
               resisting the rain.

Until to reject the lies,
        I garnish shoddy freedoms
                            like a thrill seeker.

Until I became a liar,
                        and my sleep
                                was watching
                                           my murder.

The ideas cluttered and tarnished me,
                    indelible the notions by the
                                            dumpster load.

Eyes in the darkness seemed
                               predatory.

But only alone,
              I listened to the sound
      of my wounds infecting me.

As a Marine
        with a steel mind
for a trap
       clamped shut,
I protect my ashes
       from
   the ignorant!

They thunder past
          in radiant trucks,
on glorious tractors.

Their habitual smiles ablaze.
              They turned the pipes
                              and melted the iron.

I did not look.

it was my head that was tilted
                       like a mannequin.

It was only me 
   who wondered if 
I could hear myself
                     mutter.

And me who prayed
       I might still be breathing.

Published in Cafeteria - December 1977

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