Perception

!
He kisses his ego
As he tells how grandiose he is. He is
Traveling to foreign places,
Sipping cappuccinos, listening to
The trickle of new language.
But he doesn’t understand it.
Who knew he didn’t?

!!
Could be warm
His heater works
And the bills:
Car, heat, house, electricity, water
He can pay.
Why does he leave his window open?
To let the cold creep in.
Do strangers drift through windows too?

!!!
I saw a movie
About strangers floating in the dark from
Violence, it was called Invisible
Children.

!!!!
In the frigid November air
The scene is a cliché;
Late leaves bathe the ground,
Yoga mothers drink their lattes.
The scraggly trees look at me,
I feel almost bare.
As I walk down the cracked concrete
Past the almost frozen
Still
Wide
River
I speak with a knowledgeable individual
(Who was visible)

!!!!!
Everything means something.
The children weren’t invisible
After I had seen them.
The couch is pushed against the window,
The window open and gelid
The faces disappear from the silver screen
And pale in frost.
All because I have
Seen them.

!!!!!!
The bank on the far side was lit with light
Of the living.
Clouds spat lightly on us.
He sat with his back against the boat,
An ultra-light cigarette perched in his mouth
The mouth of a duck. When a duck quacks,
We hear it as a quack. I heard

“Would you rather look at a beautiful woman, or a rock?”
If I could perceive what the rock had been dented with
But I must be fascinated with this
Woman, because I think she thinks like me.

Understanding is a flitting shadow
In a pond of red herring.
Perception is a blindfold,
Leaving everything too much
To touch.

!!!!!!!
What I you he they see is what
We see it to be.
We can’t see beyond what
We see it to be.
Uglier than brutality,
It lies in the rest of society
The fishing line that won’t snap.

!!!!!!!!
In a bank of snow
A squirrel cried
And missed its fallen acorn.

By Bishop, Nicholas V.