LEAK IN THE MASK
Thought is the
riverbank,
anxiety, the rushing
current.
Drowning man can't
get
to the safety of his
mind,
grabs at his
hallucinations,
kicks at his luxurious
memory.
He's going-under in the watery
flames,
the tumult of a withering brain
storm.
Ideas can't spin their
satellites
through his flooded
hemispheres.
His body is a
cripple
struggling to clamber
up
on the rungs of disappearing
function.
Nothing matters
but
the crushing of the
lung.
Only his tattoos can
dream.
Drowning man embraces the
unreal,
expands into the
chloroform
of all-absolving
death.
He's a planet trying to lasso
into orbit,
a meteorite striking the
landscape
of himself.
Look up in the
sky,
see bear and archer, shimmering
lion.
But see drowning
man
pulled under by the
cosmos.
See drowning man
bouncing off the metal of his
ship,
fragments of death
sucked up by life's sleek
magnets.
EXPLORERS
In this age, the stars are
all.
On one side, Gamma
Cassiopeiae,
on the other, Mu
Cephei.
A jaunt through Bode's galaxy
-
some samples
gathered,
rogue planets
avoided,
a thousand angry
rockets
firing at our sparkling
tail.
For our lives to be
elsewhere,
acceleration, warp, is all that's
needed.
Throw away the
books.
Facts come at us like
lasers.
Blue cascading
mountains,
three headed
creatures,
hitchhiking thought
forms,
unbelievable
beauty
stepping from a
water-fire.
Space and vision lock
in
and away we go.
It's a golden time
for travel, for
exploration.
Juice up the
engines
and distances fly from
us.
City and jungle, hill and ravine
–
we name them after dead
men.
We zip by other
adventurers
from far-flung
worlds.
Their missions mirror
ours.
They must have
some
dandy words for
Earth.
Here comes a great
blackness.
Blackness - another word for
revelation.
More dangers. No
problem.
Strange sicknesses
-
meet the
universe's
premier med lab.
And look, this
army
tries to blast our
hide.
Can't hurt us.
Our ships have
shields.
Our egos likewise.
John Grey is an Australian born poet. Recently published
in International Poetry Review, Chrysalis and the science fiction anthology,
“Futuredaze” with work upcoming in Potomac Review, Sanskrit and Fox Cry Review.
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