White Knuckle Mind

You, who bites my irises
as if to tear my eyes
from the faceless concept of tomorrow morning,
and whose words encircle my fierce construction
with an intertwining vocabulary
which seeps past the flawed pillars
of self-preservation,
I cannot keep you folded up in my back pocket any longer.

Angelic vertebrate
seduces my stoic prerequisite
with powerful claws of linguistic artistry.
Speak to me
as if to come alive in my mind
while I need only to listen,
pale and lethargic, in your linen
swaying my head in sync with the
true beats you feed me.
Prepared quirks of cognition
pelt the barrier and I shake violently
stretching with my feet over the edge of your bed.

But the words seep and
lodge themselves.
Twisting and wedging,
they fit, as if a gap had been created
for every sound,
producing a conceptual shift
in my mind's stream.

Who is this contention,
this verbal deity wrapping me
in rhythm and poetry
heating my neck with convective responses
and savvy queries
with blinking eyes which await my response?

Yet, I have kept you scheduled,
Pulling you down from your spot on the shelf,
on occasion,
to peel the lid from
Tupperware bowl in which I keep you.
But, as I watch,
your words penetrate your encasing,
and, floating through empty air,
they ping upon my eager outer ear
sliding thoughts through my consciousness.

I begin to grow anxious as I remember
the ghosts which both of us can see.
I reach back beyond the cloud rolling
over our peninsula
and grasp the memory of our last touch;
A swaggered stance
commanded by your lips
forming words of instructions.
I touched them,
resting your mouth of its responsibilities.

I fidget and lose my day time dream
in a quick shudder of my legs and
a perplexed tilt of my head.
Awake now
I turn my head and see you
through the glass;
half in my reflection,
and half in the restless landscape
fleeing through my field of view.

by Jason Stephens jason@hooked.net

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