Doors

In hospitals here are countless doors
that lead nowhere.  Nowhere!  I know the ones
with numbers on them maybe make you think
behind must lie some truth or certainty.
Like the ones down the hall with names on them
or doors beneath the glowing exit signs.
Do not be fooled by such decorations.
They close and open but they lead nowhere.
These doors here now I've gone through more than once,
they told me these ones here, the swinging type,
ones colored baby blue—I don't recall.
But once inside, I'm sure, I've never left.
Some say our minds and hearts they too have doors,
and long corridors made of nerves and veins.
It's far too easy getting lost in there,
when things out there, a touch or sound, a light,
become a sense, a feeling, form a thought,
become a part of you, and loop inside,
and set off countless other loops of pain....
Once you're in here, you're never ever out.

An Old Man on a Swing

An old man on a swing?   

I used to think 
that's nothing much to write
a verse about.
Until I saw a mural, one

by Goya.  Gazing at the man,
it seems as if
he's lurching forward, leaping off 
the wall,
exploding through the shattered plane.


Or maybe just

detached

and dangling, hanging on for life.


He's out of breath.
The frenzied eyes, elated.  Or

just maybe full

of horrors caged,

or Furies' rage,

The savaged sunken head atop the arms and legs belonging to a human twice his size,
cadavers or
a beast perhaps.

The mouth distends beyond all human bounds....I fear
that evil leer,
that spreads below the hollow holes, the ghosts inside, possessed....
Some say a self-portrait! 

I hope some day, some poem I create
in black and white, below my name,

can haunt you just the same.