l The Body
Alone in the corner
locked in.
Captive behind calcium bars
which have grown brittle,
the paint worn thin,
dry and flaky.
Crouching and cold,
wrapped inside bent knees
tied with twisted arms,
a keen reflection of the lock
that keeps me bound.
Age-hobbled with seasons,
brain-addled with tribulations,
body-gnarled with disease
both my captor and me.

ll The Seeing
My world through tiny
viscous windows,
scratched and dull,
have grown glaucomic.
No matter how hard
neckitwist
itwistneck
twistmyneck
mynecktwist
I see only slivers of sky.
Skies of
blue or
white or
grey.
Sometimes even
red
sky at night
giving sailors delight.
But nothing more than sky
for my cloudy eye
to spy.

lll The Strength
An old wife whispers,
‘For the wicked
there will be no rest’.
How fiendish I must be as
stiff, rusty coils
cramp and convulse,
steel grinding steel,
muscle against muscle,
and bone on bone.
Metal screeches so shrilly
my ears bleed,
until springs jump unsprung
hope eternal
and taunt taut tendons to beak free.
Finally ligaments relinquish their hold too,
leaving behind
a tick of straw
man
flopping to the floor.

lV The Self
The only other I see
now a stranger to me
who I used to know
not so long ago.
Peering at her from beyond
wavering particles of light,
until one day she too
says she must go.
Suddenly
reflection shatters sharply
and light refracts blindingly,
leaving scattered, distorted
half-images upon walls.
I watch her at her leavetaking
as the abyss steals in swallowing shadows.
But fearless she weaves in and out of darkness
through which she and her love,
through which she and her hate,
are able to find cryptic fissures
where she makes good her escape.

Vl The Mind
Tricks are playing on my mind,
Tom the fool-er has a toe-hold,
the eye blinks against sleight of hand,
and four of walls two by two becomes one.
Then I am ensnared by walls of grey
matter
where concrete arms embrace like a betrayed-lover,
release like a first-time mother,
embrace again like my strait-sleeved jacket
this time holding on to me forever.
The grey enfolds me
and I enfold the grey
until it is my grey
and I am its grey
and in the end my grey
matters
no more.

Vl Thought
Filament in the stark bulb
naked
swinging overhead
grows hot,
legs of its frenzied dance
break through its thin, glass skull.
Fragile cranial pieces
lay strewn across the ground,
seeds of thought distracted
upon wizened, fallow earth.
At last synapses rush through the air,
like fireflies in a glass jar
lit all too briefly.
Glassy tendrils loosen their grasp,
my bright thought dashed
like night bugs
against the windscreen.

VII Lifeblood
Arterial pipes criss-cross walls and ceiling,
a complex freeway
of air
of water
of life blood.
Clinking and clanging,
moaning and groaning,
swelling and shrinking,
finally succombing.
Pourous vessels yawning wide
in fruitless eforts to hold,
capillary walls collapse.
A clog of embolic proportions.
What is left of me gushes forth,
a red-black flood
showering the grey
matter
walls of the room.
And now my captor is no longer
the drab grey of prison.
At last it is the royal red crimson
of death.