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Goldfish in My Head

1. The View Outside

Limpid crystals of pellucid thought

settle

winking

in my

fishbowl

brain.

Flashing rainbow bands bedazzle on the white-washed walls.

Chatoyant shadows stir within each crystal rhomb,

reflecting jerks and twitches

of my bound and bleeding limbs.

2. Rhyme nor Reason

Chairbound, thought-bound, spellbound--

I ponder pulsing nodes that bud beneath my crown;

Glittering seeds drift rootward

to a fertile bed medullar,

Burrow in my brainstem, root, and leaf, and flower,

Bursting shards of frozen aurum shiver, swim, and stare….

I almost dream,

a snatch between the crystal glares,

(Bewilderment of hue with which my glassy dome is rife.)

Wisps of life, green laughter, cinnamon

and strife.

3. The View Within

Each languid traverse

births a tumult in my head,

Ionic memories are raped to feed the carp I dread,

Memories and fragments, each a shredding snapshot caught,

To nurture bitter lattices of hexacrystal thought,

All self laid to rest in frigid beauty’s bed:

Refracted and reflected--

The goldfish in my head.

First published in “Night Cry,” ~1985, and then "The Conspiracy Unmasked," 1994