Spiderwebbed folds hang
from thin arms.
A circle of lamplight
is his exercise yard.
Daylight is a brief fluttering wing
against closed eyelids.
Night floats above him,
and in those dark hours
he feels a light-headed immunity
from the gravity
of open graves.
Outside in the hard-wired clamor,
buses and trucks growl up droning hills.
Sink holes open and shut
within a rushing sky.
Order and chaos are ushered in and out
of crazy-eyed cats.
Sometimes his mind
is a wheezy colostrum
of milky effusions.
He paints himself with one finger
in the air.
The dying man hitchhikes under a hand,
feels the warmth of anything in full bloom.
He sighs, then gurgles like a coffee pot.
The wispy guy remains,
always sinking ever upwards
toward what - he knows not,
however, it’s not here
so, he doesn't care.
I was born with a glass heart
Completely see through
And Well understood
Very fragile
And taken very wrong.
Quite poor, it also happened to be shaped like a ball.
It got tossed around.
Hitting the ground.
Trying to be ok.
Trying to stay safe.
One toss it hit too hard.
Too outta reach to check.
hitting the ground too hard…
It was all fine I thought.
Cracked.
One line that crossed that heart
To utterly.. Spiderwebbed
A whisper makes it crumble
…shattered.
Built a house around that shattered heart
Well… what was left of it.
Just to protect that newborn's heart.
Just that little house.
That house to fix that broken heart.
That was shattered to a million parts.
A part of pain
Of memories being tossed around.
That little house protecting that almost healed heart.
Broken
Then aging it started over
Toss Toss
Drop Drop
Toss Drop
Shattered.
Then that glued together heart was shattered again.
I thought I should build a castle around that shattered heart.
Spiderwebbed folds hang from each arm
as moss will from an aged cypress.
He sometimes raises haggard hands
as if he dreams of rising again,
or to cover bleary eyes.
The world is his mind.
Daylight a brief fluttering against closed lids.
Night floats above him,
he feels a light-headed immunity
from the gravity of death.
Outside in the hard-wired clamor
buses and trucks growl up droning hills.
Order and chaos are ushered in and out
of pallid pools of sunshine
and the wheezing colostrum’s
of a cloudy effusion.
Most who travel are asylum workers,
the old brick systems of sanity
must be maintained,
the matrix clipped, then the disused
swept under crumbling foundations.
The infrastructure, the fabric
the kapok and pith,
the nuts and bolts of an older age -
it all needs workers.
The dying man hitchhikes under a hand,
feels the warmth of flesh in full-bloom.
He sighs,
the nurse hears only a gurgle,
she is monitoring,
the winking machines are monitoring
while camara’s monitor everything.
He remains in his world,
always sinking upwards
toward what he knows not,
but it’s not here so he does not care.
What substance will our thoughts incarn?
What will we flesh it out with?
Our thoughts,
Our past,
Our dreams,
Our hopes,
Our fears?
The frame is set, the choices now are ours.
Which pens will we pick up?
What colors will we select?
Will sunlight dabble her hair
or will deep forest shadows dance across her face?
Ice glistens on her eyelashes and fire shoots from her eyes.
Moonlit skin with dark passion upon her lips,
glittering ice across her spiderwebbed garment,
a scar running its course across her shoulder.
Faded tattoos of past lovers mingling along her hip line.
Shoeless feet, well-traveled;
old blisters healed to calloused edges.
What substance has our thoughts incarned?
What have we fleshed it out with?
There is a glare of stray sunlight
daring to reverberate
through spiderwebbed glass I haven't
found energy to fix
in the span of four years.
It is too much of a mirror,
too tangible a thought,
to make new.
It's lithe fingers, thin and bony,
and mockingly bright,
steal over embossed cardstock that arrives, like clockwork,
in deepest sympathy.
And a thornless bouquet of pastels laden with
Babies Breath
only draws on blood long lost;
nobody seems to comprehend such an allegory,
or lack there of,
so it can't be carried
over the steps.
"Bloodless On Mother's Day"
Jenna-Nichole Conrad
Wordsmith
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