sputtering

1. recluse

the urgency of sound rushing
flat against wooden fences

I met windows bigger than people
and slipped through them
to smaller rooms

when the wind picks up
the shutters rattle
against the wall

the world shrinks this way

nagging thoughts bend

knurled limbs

reaching out

against time

and time

again

2. story tellers

I hear myself talking
about my past

strangely slipping
words

I know that I feel something
but it is just a murmur
eking out from below

it changes to a story
the meaning created
in how I tell it

- not what happened

and then I know
that anything is possible

and I frighten myself

for what I would do
just as much as what
I would never do

3. preemption

in the future
thought police will kill you
before you can interpret
the images spinning in your head

that's their job and their right
they would be wrong not to

can you blame them?

the images are dangerous
within themselves

4. setting sail

for now
those images flicker
in a reverse strobe light
starting at my eyes
then swallow the world

can you see the flashes
taking everything in
around you? dreams
marching like soldiers

wave strange foreign flags
drifting armadas to weathered ports

on islands lost
or best avoided

maybe

from a distance
those flashes look like lightning

you'd have to get much much closer
to see what is really going on