Mind Travels Ten

THE MIRROR ON MY WALL

The sea tells me

It’s time for it

Because there is

No time left.

The waves hint at the ease

The waters enter the nose

I respond: “Death is a poem not pros.”

The barrel of the gun

Never becomes your eye or tongue

Mute like its six or twenty kin

It promises quickness

But not without pain or memories

In its noise and flame I claim

“All mistakes and failures remain.”

“So what remains?”

The Hospice wants and explanation,

“What is left? What can you recall

From all your mental movies?”

How to explain to one

Who locked tight his or her box

The instant they could walk?

They’re all on that vanity

As long as you do not turn

They do not lessen Death’s finality

Or soften my most major regrets

My overflowing file assures me

This end is more interesting than

The one racing to embrace you

A SWEEP OF THE FORE FINGER

Once the majority believed

God had the whole world in His hands.

Yesterday I realized a Used Car Salesman

Held his whole world in his hands

Which made me wonder

Is that world he clutches real?

Does he revel himself honestly

When he contacts created characters,

Becomes immersed in fiction,

Mingles with fantasies and embraces illusions?

What does he see when he sleeps?

I christen  him John, do not add a Doe

Long, long ago if John went to Iceland

Back home friends would ask,

“How was your trip?”

John had fifty words or less

Before they were back in their boxes

Now he videos two hundred photos

Ten thousand ‘friends’ devour them.

Maybe John didn’t go anywhere

Snipped a shot here and there

While sitting across from me

At the local coffee shop

Waiting to see if he is Salesman of the Week

I want to say, “Three or four worlds ago

We all could be Strangers on the Train

Totally void of our neighbor’s Bio

And he or she as ignorant of ours

So anything went from total lies

To total candor … A mobile confessional

Now John confesses, confounds of prevaricates

To how many strangers? …  Hundreds …

Thousands? Couple both of these with an of

The zeros grow you know

And how many of those are desperate for the ‘truth’?

Starved for intimacy, acceptance and hope?