Dimensions
of turmoil
kaleidoscope.
As I turn through time's thick layers,
back then, was color as bright?
Beyond the pale of memories groomed,
was blood so thick?
Was oil so viscous, water so smooth?
Was the moon so overbrimming,
a receptacle for love unrequited?
Did it paint my anguish
in its shaky mirror?
Photographic blur
of memories sensored
against the vaporous stars.
Pictorial clouds, funnels of discontent,
a billowing telescope edge expanding.
Poised in the humid chill and employed
by the intransigent instrument,
I was its lens and knob-twiddler.
Grainy bands of frequency
surge through my spine.
Grim talk shows, jesters,
soulful declarations of song,
patriots and imposters, half-timbred.
Ignorant oracles uttering bitcrushed prophecies,
yet so emphatically they stick with me, in me—
burrs on wool socks, glass shards in gristle.
I become their laserprinted quartz,
a tablet of burnished vinyl
framed behind slick-haired reporters
that speak the fighting words, forever empties
to the world's vacant theatre.
@d-pend