Lamp or Mirror
When strange light stirs the mirror, forces swirl the shadows by the bathtub and I glimpse a figure standing glowing. As I rinse the toothpaste down the drain, his blind eye whirls numinous white, his hair is moonlight streaming. I know neurologists have shown the course of dreaming as synaptic lines of force, and even in this dream I know I’m dreaming, yet when the light refracts at such an angle it shows his broken face, frost in his beard, his black lips mouthing words I only hear as moaning of an operatic angel. His ice hand reaches out. I flinch in fear. The mirror breaks. I gasp awake. He’s here.
Copyright © 2012 by Tony Barnstone. Used with permission of the author.
The Fool’s Song
I tried to put a bird in a cage.
O fool that I am!
For the bird was Truth.
Sing merrily, Truth: I tried to put
Truth in a cage!
And when I had the bird in the cage,
O fool that I am!
Why, it broke my pretty cage.
Sing merrily, Truth: I tried to put
Truth in a cage!
And when the bird was flown from the cage,
O fool that I am!
Why, I had nor bird nor cage.
Sing merrily, Truth: I tried to put
Truth in a cage!
Heigh-ho! Truth in a cage.
This poem is in the public domain.