There is a sort of meticulous scrutiny
that the great masters of the past
held and dissected – they cut it open –
taking steps with their limbs of glass
they seared their names upon
some invisible book that was placed
in the minds of self-proclaimed judges.
Look! Suddenly there is a distinction of men
And my God! Come and see what they
birthed to the world!
The architectural brilliance in the heart
of Sagrada Familia,
come and read the depths of this dead
man’s prose – the soul of Fernando Pessoa,
On les jours tristes, Yann Tiersen steals my ears.
Look! The commoners bleed green
all the way to their one-roomed palace –
the outside fraught with jewels to
make up for the empty space
beyond the emerald door –
oh how it shines.
Maybe it is only me
assigning my singular filter
to a world with so many back alley streets
and secret places I cannot even see
that am in lack of human merit.
I was staying at a hotel in Rome
or was it Singapore? New Zealand?
No Man’s Land?
I cannot remember because I lead my life
in a panic to be everywhere at once.
And in this hotel room
I had access to the universe –
its keys and people and subcultures
I –
I –
I could not breathe or
obey my brain to bend my legs –
this is more than paralyzation.
Who was it that moved their mouth
and called me banal?
I am the sound of silent clapping
and beyond this I have in me all the
hallucinations of man.
Maybe I have not branded my name
into the flesh of violent mammals
so beautiful in their fury but
I saw
I saw
the placid woman cooing the colic baby
to some sweet heaven only found in her
ordinary eyes.
I saw
the hairs rise on the arm of the boy who
only ever got C’s in school.
I saw an aging mother enjoying the wind
of a window not hers.
I saw
the small trouble the clerical man endured
to induce the equally small convenience of others.
I am missing something inside of myself
but I still have the gift of sight
and I use it to watch the greatness of good
be it the composers who send fright through bones
or be it the nanoscale conscience of one
who steps over ants.
Sinners sinners
Who of us is great?
It is you.
And one day I’ll stop punishing myself.
Look into a looking glass as it throws at me
the different wavelengths of light and –
I don’t know what I’ll do