Pain of Glass

“Embodiment” – Glass Sculpture by Eric Franklin

 

morbid bones
dressed with
ossified cartilage
work to create
crystal skeletons
ringing with
durable pain
sharp tortures
of tuning forks
resonant screams
piercing torsos of
tendons and tissue
unbearable noise
filled with agony
no one can hear
save the microbes
those tiny mad
toxiform agents
who hum their
malevolent chorus
to alchemic sounds
of a deep dense
infection that
transforms the
once supple
structures of bone
into hard rigid
girders of glass

 

From my book Ephemera

Erstwhile

“Vanilla Seascape” by Alena Shymchonak

small work is troubling
for fingers who’ve fallen
afflicted with paradox
chronically pained in
the gnarl of the knuckles
while fingertips numbed
lost of all sense of touch

small work is troubling
for eyes who can no longer
find enough light
the dimensions of clarity
stolen by dint of disease
leaving only the large
parts of life to their ken

no more elegant ships
from the grand age of sail
will reach deft re-creation
by hands of a nautical mind
every sailor who comes
at last home to the land
understands the same loss

now holds naught but dry
dreams that remember
those fortunate few
who met poignant demise
with a relevant rapture
for death well and fine
at blest bottoms of seas

Autumn Rain

“Aura of Autumn I” by Leonid Afremov

 

melancholia bathes
in a bracing cold rain
briskly tingling with
freshening ionized air
but the cleansing
won’t reach
underneath and within
well-bruised skin
can’t revivify
withered black bones
of too many necrotic
stilled summers

 

 

(originally posted October 2013)

 

Damaged

 

“Speeding Train” by Ivo Pannaggi

 

 

a train runs through my brain
it rattles the glass of my spine
driving payloads of pain across
tracks of dark neurons that spark
in black cracks of dead bones
it keeps picking up speed racing
farther away from the moment
they split me apart just to lift out
my heart leaving microbes
to seed their invasion and set
down to feed on my parts that
once dreamed of a gentle old age

 

 

(originally posted December 2013)

Hell to Pay

 

“Fire Within” by Jonas Girard

 

neuropathy runs through

cleft ribs of the cage

costal cartilage ossified

splinters of sternum

disease-riddled meal

for bacterial microbes

a thorax that burns

without flame without light

this perpetual pyre

a sentence of torment

denying the psyche its peace

keeping body from sleep

the mind from its thought

and the soul from its prayer

so much hell to pay

fighting to hold onto sanity

rescue some semblance

of dignity sine qua non

of a settled identity

healthy enough to

withstand the invisible fire

Pain of Glass

“Glowing Glass Skeleton”
Sculpture by Eric Franklin
From 9bytz.com

morbid bones
dressed with
ossified cartilage
work to create
crystal skeletons
ringing with
durable pain
sharp tortures
of tuning forks
resonant screams
piercing torsos of
tendons and tissue
unbearable noise
filled with agony
no one can hear
save the microbes
those tiny mad
toxiform agents
who hum their
malevolent chorus
to alchemic sounds
of a deep dense
infection that
transforms the
once supple
structures of bone
into hard rigid
girders of glass

Autumn Rain

Photo from flickr.com

melancholia bathes
in a bracing cold rain
briskly tingling with
freshening ionized air
but the cleansing
won’t reach
underneath and within
well-bruised skin
can’t revivify
withered black bones
of too many necrotic
stilled summers

Ill Wind

Staphylococcus Bacteria
Photo from bacterialinfection.net

on the bones of an afternoon
came a grasshopper wind
driving pebbles of plague
through the weave of a veil
meant for sandstorming deserts
not farms amid forests
or sterilized hospital halls
letting uncanny demons
discover unseeable holes
to make nest in the brain
where they noisily feed
on unchastened ideas