i am not the chemist

I am not the Chemist


I can no longer ignore the echo.
No, the space the echo exploits.
A hard space, the sound of air hurts.
Choosing a pair of gloves, a lovely scarf:
Misguided attempts to reduce its mass.
The shoes pile up, like my little history of love
And won’t ignore me. Won’t forgive me.
A habitual ballad of the body, stroked and bowed,
Gathers folio, makes the book.
Certain availabilities, clouds and sky, the box.
Suddenly I am surrounded by reflections,
Wading through chemical shocks of memory,
Unable to locate the shore, the surrogate savior.
It is obvious…I am not the Chemist.

I was identified by my walking stick
When petite Marie marched down
Cumberland Avenue as majorette,
Twirling her baton before the band.
Even then they knew me, what I’d become.
Of course, the echo bears music, its blurring image
Reminds dead men I shared their songs,
The expanding air of the hard drone’s space.
They came in to visit me through Marie’s lovely ears
And showed me how to wear a suit.
These are those days. The performance of shadow
Explaining all the missing details. Nothing gets ignored.
Funny how the sunlight was made to find the past
In its original unfolding. The colors, the temperature,

The silent text attempts to arrest its endless value.
Marie reaches up to plant a kiss upon my cheek.
No love was forced to reflect her hand mirror.
No love was made to survive the great demand.
When the dust clears, the weakest peel away.
How often does liberation present itself,
Describe the clarity in accepting the sunrise?
Amor is a warrior equipped to mangle the heart,
Sword raised to gash the wound on my blue soul.
The bone-chilling realization of future’s remains,
Identified him by his certain arrows, his fine-tuned aim.
I was speaking of the magnetic baggage
When my lover presented her case that matched.
She could not feel the nearness of freedom, its new breath.