persona

 

persona  

 

Imago has found himself of late uncertain

believes his person has reverted to a persona

appropriated   it has become a front

a certain Imago having appeared

a cameo role   in certain dubious poems …

 

Imago remembers his self

its location somewhere in his chest

the solar plexus or thereabouts and how it moved

but did not seem to change   to a position

somewhere just behind his eyes   staring out of himself

 

through the mask of his skull

from the monkey in the mirror

his homunculus   somewhat smaller

somewhat younger   somehow truer to itself

somehow more loyal to itself    

 

and the betrayal      

canvas

 

canvas  

 

I do not have the words for this

this … this …

a scream would give the sound

I’m aiming for   a real scream

I can imagine it    this scream

only as a more violent form

of the silence I am trying to break

 

I can feel the glass behind which

I am locked resonating bending

with the pressure        shattering

I can sense the shards and splinters

so sharp I can picture the scratches and cuts

the spatter pattern on the tympanic membrane  

only to become a sky scarred with cloud

a blood-red sunset in bright acrylics

drying slowly