Life revolves around her placid face.

Glassy and expressionless.

With a large golden pendent swinging silently from her neck.

Each stroke consistent and heavy.

Dictating time—which sift through my fingers, memories unmade.

My heart

drums

dutifully

with the

gilded metronome

that swings to her

unrelenting

beat.

Those delicate hands mark the gliding of moments wasted.

And upon each hour I cringe to hear her chiming voice.

Still,

my only companion. A serene and indifferent adornment on my wall,

to distract me from myself.

My body knows of the storm long before it arrives.

Pain billows and rolls up my body, foreshadowing the

black sky flowing over the horizon's rim.

Like the beautiful lighting flitting between heaven and earth.

Neurotransmitters spark and sizzle between axon and dendrite.

A chemical fulmination of pain across each synaptic chasm in my body.

I tremble and shudder in bed--not in fear from the storm's thundering groans,

but from the torment that my own body inflicts.

Immobile and silent, I can only listen as the weather rages around me.

It is not common knowledge that heavy clouds bear more than raindrops.

They birth the teardrops that streak down my face,

and remain glistening on my cheeks long after the storm departs.

I.

Sunflowers face east, welcoming

their god that climbs over the horizon.

A crimson glare floods my window.

          I hide beneath blankets, limbs weak,

          hoping that Apollo will reverse

          the coming morn behind mountain peaks.

II.

Life thrives under the

honey orb that arcs among the

cream splotches in the sky.

The Earth spins and dances

around it's sun as

          I sleepwalk

          through the day. Body

          cemented in place.

III.

Noctilucent clouds shimmer

as day morphs into night.

Two heavenly spheres

wink at one another.  One waking

while the other dips into slumber.

          I know of the sleepless hours in the dark

          silently despising the

          promise of another day.

IV.

In the evening

constellations churn about Polaris.

His movements are not tracked by days or years.

To the world he is lame.

A diamond idly hanging in velvet black.

          I am Polaris.

          Seemingly frozen in a world of motion.

          But I do move--ever so slowly.

Flashing across the span of a lifetime,

A brilliant flame in the heavens.

I pity the fly,

while lying frozen in pain on my bed.

It's final death throws hitting against

a glassy illusion of freedom and life.

With each thwack against the window,

I shudder.

I leave the blinds closed.

An act of mercy to let it die in privacy,

but truly to shield myself from seeing

the dried and lifeless body.  I fear to see it.

Yet I listen, obligated to witness

the fly's enduring efforts to live.

life lines spark through emptiness

between Heaven and Earth.

     arcing    

            and forking

on a path of least resistance.

fulminating against Their black isolation.

     grasping

             and reaching

into a brilliant embrace.

Stars bloom in midnight's fields

--as we lie braided together

beneath the milky ribbon.

Like winter's first snow

--silence blankets us.

I breathe in the moment.

Cold air and his smell

flows deep

into me. Imprinting

this delicate memory.

Our bodies shake

under a large mosaic quilt.

Wanting to escape

the frozen, haloed moon.

To seek warmth inside.

Yet, we linger.

Wishing upon

blinking stars, that this

pause in time

will never end.

I. The Mirror

There she stands, commanding my gaze

--invincible and unbreakable.

A youthful body, with a head held erect

upon confident and unyielding shoulders.

She is a white orb of night reflecting the sun.

An imitation, by stolen light.

Yet there are those who believe her lie

and think she is me.

The butterfly fish has two faces.

One is real--the other a fraud

to confuse and fool the predator's eye.

Is she my counterfeit, or am I hers?

This is who they perceive

when they look at me. A cold reflection

--a shell. But when cut; inside is found

a bruised and broken soul.

II. The Photograph

She's there again, standing in golden afternoon sun,

smiling and glittering in a wedding dress.

Her husband holds her closely, seeing only the

thriving and vibrant woman before him.

She is a distorted and bent image through the lens

of a camera. A beautiful refraction--

a photograph of who I wish to be,

and who everyone thinks I am.

The Matryoshka doll was made to be a toy.

Each layer opens and reveals another hidden figure.

Locked beneath her painted shell I huddle,

seen only if I am torn apart.

Does he know, as he holds her in the picture,

that he will hold me tightly, grasping to keep my

broken pieces from crumbling, while others are

fooled by her smiling facade?

III. The Glass Door

I see her, the shadowy reflection in the door.

She stares at me with those dark glass eyes

--penetrating my soul. She knows that I am

nothing without her. Weak and broken.

I wonder if we are in a symbiotic relationship,

or am I a parasite that cannot live without its

healthy host? Could she exist without me?

With a smile, she opens the door.

IV. The Prison

I remember when we first met, our eyes appraising

each other through the mirror. She saw my shattered pieces

and tears on my cheeks. Beckoning me with a firm hand,

she promised me protection from the world.

She would become a harbor for my shipwrecked

soul to dock, and a beautiful mask to hide beneath.

But I did not know then, when I took her icy hand,

that she would also be my prison cell.

               Today I visited the Carnival,

               With the circus tent just north of town.

Many visitors slip in and out, and others rush from their white automobiles

into the V.I.P. entrance, red and blue lights.  Announcing their arrival.

Walking inside the large tent I found silly clowns in lab coats that

swayed as they danced.  Magicians with gleaming scalpels looking for

volunteers to be sawed right in half.  And even a palm reader insistently grabbed my arm, claiming to foresee a cure to all my life's afflictions.  Abruptly          I come to a cage beside the 'Bearded Woman' exhibit.  A flimsy sign leans beside the locked iron door.  It says, 'The Patient'.  A spot light is turned to the

                                                    center of the stage.

and a loud voice announces that the patient has many symptoms but has eluded any diagnosis.  I turn to look at the curious creature, yet see myself in the glaring light.  I am poked with needles by doctors with clownish grins upon their painted faces.  Only to be told that they don't know what is wrong.  I am placed in machines that are run by wizards that believe they know all, yet are stumped as to what is ailing me.  I am 'The Patient' in the spotlight          with no          diagnosis.  As I begin to leave, a bill is posted for me.  All of the expenses of the doctors visit, blood tests, and C.T. scan are listed--Even though I was the one who performed the tum

                                                                      bl

                                                                         ing act.

               In the circus tent just north of town,

               Today I visited the Carnival.