I must quit the attempt

for I am able to draw the sinuous thick hairs, the

oval slick face, the jagged

edges of a jaw,

and bushy brows.

But as I begin the contour

of the eyes

The Image of Man ceases.

For these lead circles

Mark my man a woman.

I try, I try, I try.

Yet all I create

Are pages of grim, brash,

Starved women, who,

Unable to eat, breathe,

Are left behind the blue bars,

dreaming in the white twilight.

Lashes batting, iris still

She watches, unmoving.

Lead fills in no mouth,

Bears no heir to a nose,

I have left her there,

And she, my babe,

Pleads for sustenance and beauty.

Burning to be.

Begs me, oh Creator,

to finish with her; accept

a brutish girl; one I sketched

in my image but cannot allow

forward unless her eyes betray

her to my club, no girls allowed.

I have passed her a hundred times

Nor cared to see.

I allow her struggle.

I leave her.

Tucked away in the pages of past memory.

Years pass, but she has stayed

a girl in the same spot.

Perhaps, a woman, too.

The weight she bore like books

stacked upon her chest,

have left wrinkles and muddled her face.

I barely recognize her now. Her

Jagged jaw not so; The once thick, short

Hairs all a mess of grey now.

But still, her eyes pierce me,

Like a paper cut.

Sharp, intense, quick,

Blood brooding and soon to rise.

Revenge.

Could you not accept my disfigured

female form as you could so easily

a man’s?

I ignore her; throw her into my trash—

Last night’s leftovers soak her through.

The eyes begin to dissipate

Ah, perhaps a drawing of a man?

Seven minutes

Light pours through the pores so prudent,

And she stands watch, the clock, a student,

She wonders now if all arises,

If promised comes upon horizons,

Then why question any being?

For what reasons catch the fleeing?

All returns to dust and soot,

None can outrun God’s own foot,

We stride upon hot worlds a’ wonder,

Nothing to put us, not us, asunder.

The sun will rise, the moon will fall,

For who else wakes the sleeping doll?

And we shall run through the fields of grass,

Build lives and worlds that none surpass,

Languid, we shall lie beneath the stars,

Jubilant prisoners licking our scars,

Barr the questions out of sight,

Live, live, live sweet, charming, bright.

One day the girl will sit outside the church,

And rocks, minerals, diamonds find in her search,

The mother, clutching book upon her chest,

Will pray for world, life, child to be blessed,

And minute, minute, minute will linger,

And there the gospel Beulah singer,

Spreads her joy as she brings her eyes to God,

Minute, Minute, Minute has trod.

The last minute born on fragile shoulders,

And when complete, the dark enfolders,

No one knew this day to come.

Oh God, Oh God, bring back the sun,

The light, the dream, the beauty ‘round.

But, no, you’re left with only sound,

With electronic light, electric air,

The battery as the only heir,

Of feigned beauty, of feigned true light,

The world begins to see with sunless sight.

The sounds are all still left as real.

The world, it begs, it pleads, to feel.

Hear the lost wanderings of feet,

The silent cries the heart does beat.

The seven pounds now give the sight,

The seven minutes took from light.