The Kiln

I do not write these things to enliven the past

I write these things to set the past in a chest

Like a portrait or a trunk or a glass vault

The vessel is always permeable to the senses

The oblivion of forget so sought after by the opium denizens

And bourbon dunk tankers sailing the pirate commerce currents

Those charcoal waters are not navigable  

No matter the darkness the image resurfaces

Therein I write

I write to shackle the butterflies and krakens to pens of simile

So that the reality will fracture into metaphor and syntax

For the emotions to make easier to grasp hot out the kiln

The sentiments intense in recollection’s stained glass

Others may see the translucent panes swept to the refuse heap

Others the mirror in buried yards

The color show it never goes but into a story

Once written I have granted myself permission to not remember

For I know I do not have to cage the bird

For if I must see the feathers fly I can go to the pages

Resting in digital notebooks scribed

That time is like a capsule extracted from the mind

The explanation of why, psyche is cached

Dulled into the mirage of poetry and December’s transpose with July’s

So that I can be rowing on and on