Through the arches of my imagination
there flow streams
of purest nonsense, cold waters
of nothingness that vaporize
whenever one tries to feel anything there.
Thought, I conjecture,
is something of a bird, flitting
from point to point, never resting
too long on one wondering
lest it slip into the folds of a dream, forget
just where it last had roosted.
My soul is the armor
I wear on the inside, that protects me
from myself. I have heard tell
of a few who have worn
so many holes in their barrier garment
that nothing impedes
the mind from any of its
theories of cruelty, the heart
from its black, incalculable corruptions.
Are you so made? What
runs through your streams,
and flies through your trees? And do you
have any stronghold in yourself
where the one in the mirror lives,
whose eyes you do not
wish to forget, and wonder, "Who is this?"
ah