I could be the devil himself running deep into the crystal of those mirrors

Or she who stares back grinning past your heart

Taking you inside—passed labyrinths of reflection

Your soul in my hand

As images of me paint themselves with insignificance 

So masterful my stroke         —twinkle twinkle in my eye—

Not one king of words might envy me

Not here where objects are closer than they appear

Nor there

Where that tiny, ruffled master said

Nasty things about music in a convex mirror

Paint me not in his portrait

Paint me rather—paint me instead—

Paint me in a railroad station

Alone and artful, like the devil herself—my hair in wind

Like Albert’s  (were it not for the doses of mediocrity)

Like a brown dog with brown eyes and a soul the color

Of a paper bag

—Alas! With grand passion

A voice like a cape in wind      [a vampire (toothless) climbing funny way high upon some castle]

                                                   A chariot delirious amongst the woods

There’s no reflection really

Not now that I am empty as glass     —grey

Color of                                              in-between

Chipping glass when you tap it

Un-shattered by a dash by a hair

That no light of the sun strikes it.

It’s sad in there. Yesterday I smiled.   

A.R.B.

29/10/12