Michael’s Journal

Standing in the center of the first of
Two rooms my eyes scan pieces that have been
A part of my memory for only
A few days but still somehow seem almost
..Recognizably memorable.
Familiar.

Like an uncle you’ve only met once or
Twice, like the drive to an old girlfriend’s house…
You know how to get there by sight, pretty
Much turn by turn, but this time a row of
Trees and houses, once called suburbia,
Become flecks of human life among all
Nature’s oaken marvels; and the trees aren’t
Green and brown anymore, no, they appear
Auburn, chocolate umber and deep orange
Brown, sliced by delicate flashes of white
And refractive solar warmth of daylight.

Islands of separate nuclei, yolks of
forgetful longing seemed to have taken
on lines, if not shapes, of their own. What was
once a lot of yoke has morphed/developed
into states or heads of states, like photo
negatives of a skewed caricature
portrait from the early Twentieth Sea.

Nailed to the wall on a painted circle
skillet I see the facades of monkey
bourgeois loveliness or a two-faced Holmes.
Sherlock and old man Janus sit side by
Side, the latter with the mask of the stage
Peering from his railroad windows that he
Cannot hide. Seriocomic bliss rests
On either side of his white clay coin face.

Mental Vacations of indeterminate wavelengths.

And now I recline in this hourglass
Fiberglass encased bandage. I recall
A linen tablecloth smudged with tea and
Marmalade stains. Teaspoons are weapons and
Breakfast’s simple footprints of no one there
To clean up after ol’ me. With yawning
Fat men and snickering tourists I turn
Away and I see my old stand-byes have
Resulted and also resolved themselves
Deep into ado, to do with my love
Of cooking for you and also my love
Of singing for food.

All these holes in the grain of my existence live on without me, with or without my resistance.

The birds still sing though I recline bounded
Half women half-dance in these confounded
White lacquered walls that plague me with color
That hang up my insides y todo mi
Silencio y dolor solo pueden
Oír y oler, ver y sentir el
Olor de mi sangre que
Ruega por voz… ensima me pega
Como la mano de Dios.

Raw and unfettered and leaving nothing behind, I stand and I wait holding onto my mind.

Six hidden heartbeats that drip off these pics
Have eluded all the others because
Their mind’s all play tricks.

Their minds who are closed, their souls who are cold
Pacing through life till they all are just old.

I had to search I had to listen but
That’s what I do, just share all that glistens
Take from the gold and yes even the rain
Whatever I can so that nothing’s the
Same, and no one’s to blame if you stand to
Gain all that is here in front of you: The
Colours all hidden in green, red, and blue.

I can’t ever make my way deeper in.
There is something that pins me right here deep
Within. My center is alone, and I
Feel like an egg whose time is all but up,
With the passers all by knocking over
My cup, but with each person going I enjoy
The waves of silence and the private show
For if you want and truly see there’s more
To everything in your life’s gallery.

Half eaten or just a slice or two
This banana cream toast-infused
Pancake buttered red and blue.
Dancing legs on white walls vanish
While other legs just freeze and wonder
Sitting in decrepit blunder
Shadowing far away from you.
Mirror image and dashed-line shadows
Glow a bit from their grey-soaked hue
While stolid steely angle flirting
Is diffracted from one to two…

Fallen chances and beaten egg yolks
Crack into the black space now
In a tri-colored invasion
Of green and white and blue.

Salt and pepper spoons
That have been used and used
Stain a linen agéd cloth.
Choked and tied in herbal wonder
Something’s fused me to this chair
Designed by Alighieri’s sloth.
Leaning back and tied forever
Bound into this place and time.
I remain here now and forever
Convalescing in the land of rhyme.

Plastered to a skillet pan
On a vertical kitchen stove
Someplace south of my tomorrow
Did my mind begin to rove.

Pinned and tacked like island continents escaping into nothingness,
A yoke-al center part of Whiteville seems to hold this nucleus
Tight to themselves but not each other, away from one another still
Like some ward of black construction waiting by the window sill.

Looking off, off into nowhere,
Nowhere’s in particular it seems
I travel here and there and go where
My mind rips to and fro my seems.
Waiting for some sort of order
A sentence to the frying pan
My voice is monotone recorder
I stand alone facing the man.

Licking plates clean
Neck and ankles straining still
Bound and gagged
A Bugsy silhouette
Hides something ragged
To the eyes of those who will
See something ‘neath this black silk screen.

If you only look down and deeper
If you look past all my color
You will see yourself
Across the table in the mirror.
Seek and you shall find the reeper.
Half a chair and half a window
Cooling blades cut through my walls
Seismographic mirror forests
Birds that chirp but never fall.

And here stands a step by step instruction manual of sorts
Turning you, a human deduction, to a furniture cohort.

But all around I am rescinded by my fellow man who’ve tried,
Mossy mirror glassy floor-rid this is how they all just died.

Stepping through the creaky caverns
Of someplace deep inside my mind,
Hearing stolid wingéd messengers
Warning me just what I’ll find.

Glass infused
And light diffracted
Dancing women
By night distracted
Tearing ticker tape in two
Cardboard crayon
Convalescing
Won’t ever bring me close to you.

Won’t ever make a whole so messing
When the scheme of things
Leaves me resting and caressing
Those that at least I can see.

For the warning singing fowls
Left me all alone tonight,
And with pentagonal statues
I cannot recall to fight
My way through…
They’ve taken me from you.

I sit and am bound.

In the corner do I sit, waiting hearing you
Endearing me to stay a little longer
They won’t let me play with you
Why can’t they just take my word, my dear?
Why must you always run away to here?

Exhibition: January – March 2009
Sara Greenberger Rafferty, BANANAS
Vlatka Horvat, Or Some Other Time