INHALE - from June/July 1997

OPEN!!! Mind
y’re free to breathe

     unclouded by

second-hand smoke-blowers
coughing up
hand-
-me-
-down
Freudian souvenirs

Never a moment of indecisive-
ness
y’r task
is to keep a sensible altitude
above the smog-line
and drag deep
on pure oxygen
while they pollute the atmosphere
w/ eager fartings
of textbook
wisdoms

                    it is
            important to enter-

tain loud company
make them feel
welcome)
(though in reality
Uninvited

              remain patient
        as their eyes come unfocused

and settle on a distance
just beyond
y’r
shoulder
groping for that lost word
¬¬ --left somewhere in that Space–
that would illuminate
some sudden insight
in-
to the human
con-
dition

but alas,
these transparent epiphanies
burn out
in mid-thought
leaving fragments of ½-spoken mu-
sings to hover
in the vacuum
over-
head

unable to gain
escape velocity
they slow-spiral
to earth
as
dy-
ing

em-

     bers

and ignore the odor they leave in y’r clothes
(let’s call it a small sacrifice for friendship)