THE MIRRORED MUSE OF THE MIRROR MAN
Golden threads upon his headgear crown,
White attire as robes flowing, drifting down.
Against a canvas red, his spirit shines,
A thousand faces, splintered across places, one design.4
A regal calm, with no alarm, a timeless grace,
Yet fractured mirrors, cracked interiors, frame his face.6
Echo, echo, shards of lintel light,
Fragments dancing in the night.
Each shard a story, each glance a flame,
Whispers of God's glory, echoes of name.¹°
Every mirror sync with my life's aim,
Every rhythm fans my fervent flame.¹²
Step by step, the story sways,
Tradition emboldened in woven ways.
Pride and honour, bold and true,
Reflected skies of crimson hue.¹6
By experience woven, pride adorned,
A spirit unbroken, richly worn.¹8
And in the silence, still and grand,
History and future carried in his hand.
I am one soul, yet many visions span,
A man of dexterity and posterity, borne of woman.²²
I'm one who's not just reflected in fragments
But carried into history & beyond forever radiant.²4
VICK MANUEL POETRY {VMP}
FORM: Rhymes
Copyright ©?15th February 2026.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A continent we haven't yet worked out,
it may be barren, may contain high worth.
The more we learn, the greater grows our doubt.
A place of poison spiders, clot-red earth,
it's huge. Marseilles to Moscow isn't quite
the space which separates Penrith from Perth.
When first we meet it, promise glitters bright.
Its sun is strong, its vegetation lush ...
Harsh truth defeats analysis so trite.
This beauty is skin-deep. Sweet waters gush,
but only on its gaily-colored fringe.
Interiors are ominously hushed.
Just scratch the surface, there's an ocher tinge
which speaks of life extinguished. Dead rocks seethe
beneath cruel radiation. Reptiles cringe
in crevices. There's nothing here to breathe.
I am yellow-green! Peridot the color of self-esteem
Protective against life’s rife that may stream
I come from the earth’s rich interiors ore,
xenolith layers that make up its inner core
Purifying positive spiritual energy and well-being
Channeling love to intrusive shadows unseen
When sunrays shimmer thru shade tree leaves,
you’ll see me glinting behind the summer breeze
Dewy meadows in warm August blankets at sunrise
I am your luxuriant gift, and you are the prize
I whisper like the burbles of the stream.
Though, in my interiors, there's a scream.
I have composed my song. Shouldn't I sing?
Between nodules of clouds of doubts I swing.
Aesthetics and passions amalgamate.
Love and warmth, like lake ripples, escalate.
Arduous desires break like waves of seas.
Could my peaceless soul ever feel at ease?
You're the soulful singer. You are the song.
I'm a song too. But do we flow along?
There's, between us, a common logarithm.
Should we not unite with nature's rhythm?
HOOGSTRATEN
eyecatching
interiors
DALI
bizarre
banalities
DUCHAMP
basic
necessities
TWINKU a double word distich with integral title
One would wonder how the West came to the interiors
of Africa:
For whether it was the first time or so many a time in the
past.
And if it was true about the former, like the West would
almost carter for another view of the world, another views
yes, it seems like the world is ranking of hierarchy from
the top to bottom, somehow like a blossoming flowers,
somehow like a very active elements?.
Now, is it not at least a legacy or political whims or
monster or dragon or willy-nilly?.
Farther bend down the history is a view or wish or hope
strange tonight or how are these things sigh or doth
ballad? somehow like the world will echo in memory
and love and something?.
Yes, imagine somehow forget- me - not or rose or her
bosom, even a merer, merer, merer whims.
They scoff at us Jews for our traditions
the myriad laws and restrictions
Never mixing milk and meat
watching every bite we eat
No wearing garments of mixed materials
not even on our ‘interiors’
Never planting mixed seeds, and
for our cattle no non-kosher feed
Letting the land lie fallow every seven years
no matter some accounts in arrears…
Yet these traditions ensure ecological balance
which our Rabbis safeguard with Talmudic talent
Henri Matisse's Studio
Scattered about like fish in a pond
are paintings and objects in a secluded room
in a sea of red, shouting out loud,
“Connoisseurs please enter, others not welcome.”
The pink studio expresses acceptance
of chic bourgeois realism, reinforcing boredom
with sunlight streaming through the window
and a welcome mat lying on the linoleum.
The colour-contrast room interiors
accentuate artworks during creative years
of avant-garde innovations
that have captured an audience’s attention.
One version is neat and tidy, and the other chaotic,
peering into one and looking out from the other,
revealing Matisse’s mind in motion
from realism and post-impressionism to Fauvism.
You cool my being when it's catastrophically sad.
When you just touch my skin, it's my mind that goes gladly mad.
The rhythm of classic music fills your pitter-patter
Between you and the wind, what exactly is the chatter?
My heart, like a red rose, blooms. The aroma of love spreads.
From within, as a thick speck of summer dust, ego shreds
Is there, between you and the earth, a passionate debate?
Joy, like new sprouts, from my interiors rejuvenates.
Do you mirror my sadness? You erased my tears, I know.
Don't you know, that it's out of inner pain that the tears blow?
Lightning peeps from clouds like a shy girl behind her mother.
Each bubble in troubled waters tries to smash the other.
I feel cleansing, like freshness of physique after a bath.
Is the thunder raising its voice a sign of divine wrath?
Zeus, Oya, Indra, and Hyades dance in euphoria.
There's, on earth, a rhyme and chime of Amen Alleluia.
Domestic interiors
falling pearls
of splendour
the everday
in
quiet,calm
still snapshots
of life
hints of the unsaid
Indelible
seared deep
in memory
Unsolved enigmas
conjecture preserved
in paint
Silent sounds
echo
& stir
with familiarity
the moments of interplay
vivant
intimate
intricate details
begin the beguine
joys outflows
perfection
preserves the serene
mirrors the sublime
with emphasis
& suggestion
stresses
of the fanciful
&the significant
with
implications
&illusions
Winter has cast its strangling hold inside and outside.
The joys I have known are gone.
Cold winds blow bleak and harsh.
The flowers in my garden have wilted and withered.
All things sweet have passed and flown away.
Flakes of snow, layer on layer, lie piled within,
And harden as rocks with worms of fear inching their way,
To eat away all the delicate buds of hope.
Spring, Oh! Spring grace me with your regal smile,
Brightening my sky with constellations of stars.
Crash down the walls that segregate, leaving me a fugitive,
And pour love's balm into my bruised soul.
Possess me as an unseen benevolent spirit,
Thawing the frozen interiors with your warm sunshine!
Unlike castles on sand
Your name tattooed into My Hand
As within gold engraved
Into my interiors will remain saved
Like the redness of my blood
And my veins with pulse thud
With each molecule braced
Will be perpetually graced…
INTERIORS
signs
of consideration
at
first glance
divide
the darkness
a
mutual
exclusion
foreboding& inaccessible
conceived
reminiscent
of the forlorn
pallid
desolate
heightened
in
prevailing
melancholy
shadowed
in
emptiness
articulated
& anticipated
in
the
unusual&untamed
with
brooding
exemplified
by
separation
SYNTHESIS
alienation
unregistered
induces
scrutinywith
interior
&
comparable
transformation
a
visible
conscious
perception
of
the
intimate
fields
of sensation
in the
problematic
Back then,
backyards were big enough
to nurture a growing soul
and provide a space
for the earth to play out
its seasons in full rehearsal.
There were wide tracks
of grass, trees to climb,
old sheds to rummage
with their interiors full of tools
and bric-a-brac
webbed in history.
There was food - ripe tomatoes
and corn from a vegetable patch,
grapes swelling
under a cool canopy of vines,
soft skins bursting
their dark sweetness
inside expectant mouths,
almonds, apricots and the luscious
dribble of a warm peach
down sticky cheeks.
Some had roaming chickens
with their bounty of eggs.
Backyards were blotting paper
for a child's hurt, a hiding place
to get away, a theater
for projecting the phantasies
of a sheriff or a princess
high in a golden tower.
And in summer, a sprinkler
casting a gauntlet of cold spray
for tiny feet to challenge.
Then it all ends
when backyards become
too small and more exotic places
call a restless soul to leave
its Eden and break the spell
of its beginning.
It was strange as a very strange dream,
And like a rare foggy winter day sunbeam;
Was that caressing kiss meant for me,
Or like the tide of the sea, for anyone, free?
Did I feel that Kiss had a romantic touch,
Nay, in it there was no intimacy as such;
The interiors of my being seemed to crack, yet,
As though in my unawareness nothing got set;
A bit of complication like that of loops of a thread I felt,
Oh, how many times I could see my faith melt!
Many times life looked like Shakespearean tragedy,
Even catharsis seemed to increase my agony;
This state of mind continued for very long,
Until I understood that my love should grow strong...!!!
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