a place preserved in memory
as if in mystic fantasy
where revolutionaries farmed and fought
no time for speeches or dialectic thought
a place where survival was the goal
requiring discipline, stamina, self-control
where it was ‘from each according to his ability
to each according to his needs’…
a place somewhere between museum piece
and curiosity
~ every Israeli kibbutz in the 1930's
The interior is a scary place
with hallways that seem
to go on forever and doors
behind which there are
darkened or half lit rooms
with nothing inside except
eyes that watch you
out of slits in face masks
hung upon the wall.
There are whispers creeping
along corridors and out
on the far edges of hearing,
the sound of someone
calling. This place has
no windows just thin,
clenched threads of light
hanging down from cracks
in the ceilings and a pale
glow crawling out from under
the bottom of a locked door.
There are no exits
in private museums.
Feathers for bird museum,
None see 'em,
Home was sweet,
Strangelove repeat....
(12 word poem).
I would make a museum of my mind
Fill these musty halls with all my people
Every girl who has walked my corridors
To write her piece and paste it on the walls.
Every plaque together, a mosaic
Of all personas, memories, and thoughts
Together an image, reflected back
Informative of me, an auto-school.
Blowing out the dust of unused ballrooms
Broom cupboards and and the back stairs, each its own
Room for machinations, revelations,
Fed by all those who reside within me
My lonely people, aimless wanderers
Floating through the corridors room by room
Their homes are these clustered, open cloisters.
Endless is my palace of passages.
I am dissected in a thousand cuts
Each slice a living, pulsating breather
Warm and soft against my cobblestone floors
Balance of life and rock, they people me.
Voices low and laughter cheerful, I hear
My population all internally
All beings that are me, graduated
Notches on a scale, all playing their part,
Like cogs and wheels they move in tandem drifts
Here in this exhibit they gave me, of
Balustrades adorned and turrets revived
I transformed: a museum of my mind.
Dusty little towns
West of the Great Divide
Where great-grandchildren of cowboys
On ranches still reside.
Small western museums
With local antiquities inside;
Native American artifacts,
Some horse tack for a cowboy's ride.
There among the fancy
Are two dresses hemmed above the knee,
20's Jazz Age fashion
Worn far from the speak-easy.
Caused a bit of an uproar,
As they danced on the sawdust floor.
Who were these rebel cowgirls,
These flappers from western lore?
I visit the Museum of the Past in my memory.
Still life paintings I stroll through, lazily, my hands clasped behind my back.
There, the glass you drank from, still holds the print of your bottom lip.
I break the rules and pick it up. I fit my mouth where yours was and imagine your taste, your scent.
I wonder what this particular work of art looks like when you are the artist. And I wonder which of us is the closest to reality.
I have no doubt that you imagine yours to be true, even if you are fooling yourself. Which is exactly what makes hating you, blaming you, impossible.
Oh, there is our song playing through the speakers in the museum walls…an instrumental, “elevator music” version. Why do I love to wallow in this sweet ache of sorrow?
At least I have no more regrets of what I haven't done …now I can only regret what I have.
One last look over my shoulder then I turn off the museum lights and walk away.
At the World War II Museum,
There were crowds in every hall
And so much to see and read
You couldn’t quite absorb it all.
Yet the visitors, so varied,
Were attentive and polite,
Everybody so intrigued with
Every battle plan and fight.
There were artifacts and movies,
Interviews with those who fought,
Which enhanced the schoolbook knowledge
That each one of us was taught.
Hours went by until the closing
And we saw all that we could.
Most Americans won’t get there,
But I think all people should.
I saw a man
Hugging a rhino,
Why he was
I really don’t know!
I know some people
Like to hug a tree,
But a stuffed rhino
In a museum,
This surely can’t be!
To visit a museum
Where you’ve never been before
Means you have the opportunity
To amble and explore.
At the Worcester* Art Museum
Were mosaics on display
And some special arms and armor
In an orderly array.
There were works by famous artists
And a treasure trove amassed
Just awaiting our perusal
As we slowly moseyed past.
In the gift shop, objects beckoned
So I bought a little treat
To remind me of my visit
And to make the day complete.
*pronounced “Wooster,” like “wood”
Diaries left open and letters framed,
chronological ink waving from a horizon, gone.
Clothes hung to recreate a wedding, a dance, a touch –
enclosed in glass cases to trap the scent inside.
There’s a recording of his voice that skips
back through time. Her handprint in clay, cracked.
That first glass of wine, now cobwebbed, stained red,
next to teenage car keys rusted.
A prescription acts as evidence I tried.
Sawdust forms a path between pets
and my Walkman makes youth balk;
to them my VHS collection is alien.
Postcards curled from saltwater offer perfect snapshots
years before we scrolled for one.
A mortarboard on display alongside a bus pass, front door key and bank card.
A blade of Sefton Park grass pinned down like the wings of a butterfly.
Receipts of apologies. Candleholders waxed in missteps.
Maybe, one day, there’ll be a travelling exhibit where I finally get to meet you.
And the curator will add you, title card and all, to this museum of me.
On synthetic derelict stage of deception domain,
I gyrate the split mind, ensnared by bipolarity chain.
Under illusive limelight of ostentatious time,
I’m entangled in machinated invasive paradox prime.
In make-belief life’s drama I act with no compunction,
I face fabricated faces flocking redundant in conjunction.
Identity lost in conglomerate of counterfeit facades,
I don’t perform by heart's prudent prompt if it pervades.
In masquerading faces reflected in warped mirror,
I see concealed the contorted contours of rancid rancor.
With their phony pretense a conciliation role I tactfully play,
my misshapen face of spite, the actor in me doesn't portray.
Finding a fake place to subsist in pretend archival spaces,
I’m a configured antique in the museum of masked faces.
In the cold draft of an empty morning,
I sit widowed, engrossed in scattered thoughts,
confused by tawny tunes of ticking time,
knitting vague colors of changing seasons.
In silence, my name remains forgotten,
mere memory in an old museum.
But when I feel the golden rays of sun-
that drapes my winter heart in honeyed glints,
I trace truth between these wrinkled life lines.
For mind spirals in a web of chaos,
tangled amidst sharpened needles in grey.
I sing special songs to my healing plants;
reflective remedy to blurred flashbacks.
I water them with bleeding tears of angst,
and watch them thrive in my glass window.
Whilst I struggle to remember my past,
where my soul danced to daffodil daydreams,
when my kin ran in circles around me.
Fern greens, only familiarity,
Alzheimer's, now my sad reality.
you always had a way with words
like Amsterdam
whose running rhymes
of bicycles and harpsichords
and bridges over canals caused
us both to steer each other's hold
to mouths whose distance
was decreasing,
slowly through museum pieces
though I always hoped to linger
nestled inside yours
In a museum I no longer care
To read what they write on the wall.
I look at the art, check the names and the dates
And don’t need much more info at all.
I don’t want to listen to audio guides
Explaining the backgrounds of works.
Just having the time for some gallery strolls
Is the best of retirement’s perks.
As I’ve gotten older, my patience is thin
So historical facts make me bored,
But the chance to see paintings and sculpture to me
Is enough of a lovely reward.
Her skin, pale and fragile
as bone china
protected by a heart
inviolable, gilded threads
weft and warp cloth-of-gold
that flys pennoned from her
shoulders, red hair burning
brighter as she competes
with the setting sun
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