Contributor: Ray Miller

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I just don’t know what to do with my self
and it’s seldom I can locate it.
I’m circled on maps but when I stop to ask
a dust has covered the traces.
In living rooms and in limbo,
on all fours and on tiptoe I’ve chased it.
I’ve read the self-help literature,
Bergson et al and etcetera:
the brain is but a filterer
and in theory all can be heard and seen,
what is now and what has been.
The world is on my fingerprints,
its garbage overflows the bins
and I am blown by violins
to search my self to smithereens;
down half-remembered alleyways
the detritus of all the days
has settled on our counterpane.
Let’s fumble locks and zips and lips
too intimately intricate,
let’s laugh and listen to the drips
of a viscous blue percussion.
Let’s steal a ball with a private invite
and dare the world to pursue;
then at daybreak when the dust has flattened
and the great birds hover and squawk,
I’ll shrink smaller than invisible
and beg you to turn on the dark.


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