IMOGENE’S NOTEBOOK
Walking With the Dead
A poem
Iron sides,
fallen factory lines,
fools gold dims the sun’s mimes
and mimics imprinted footprints as moving time,
but fossils magnify perceptions
becoming present inside themselves,
and all battered oars bleed their own blind spots
before cutting waves into yesterday’s oceans
that seep into man-minded lands
with seashore sand at a glorious price —
you can’t stay without paying the tolls
with small slices of paper mache
and one heart set to boil underneath oblivion.
Soil burns past black
shovels churn in bittersweet toil
as roots dig deep to drink days of life,
and the echos plant seeds that sprout past leaves
that blow with the breeze to appease
a stagnant air that inhales ghosts
who lie firm and maintain the motions —
do we dare to just stop?
and think about sight sideways
or upside down and in between?
or stay with fitted ways,
since ancestors agonized over eyes
sized to see without sway.
