sketches of a child's room

August
tripping over sandals in the doorway
of the type your grandfather would wear in the peaceful days post-war
she is stricken by the walls
near-barren cream
an unframed art project from his scholastic days
a map of azure seas and copper lands bleak highways cutting through the mass
roads and pathways labelled with the names of authors
reproduced in compositions philosophical inaugurated in conspiracies of tomes
atop a shelf
of wood and wire
tucked within a miser's purchase of a bookcase
housing toiletries spare toothbrushes and soaps
tissues in case he should catch cold and
chocolate cashew nuts to supplement a feeble disposition
a half a dozen’s ballpoint pens to write within
the wiry notebook that sits upon a desk adjacent
where he has been told he is to learn instead of sleep
upon a bed with sheets untainted yet by his new wonderful
discovery.  

September
it is a pair of sailor’s shoes
brown leather stricken with the marks of one muddy summer’s afternoon
time past within the bogs of rural southern gothic stories
that are his own reality
tales of the land of rote imagination that dwell within
the cartographic composition
fantasyland
joined now by a lonely postcard tacked
upon a piece of cork
one sharp pin protruding silver golden
a sentimental landmark of the highbrow chelsea in new york
manhattan echoed in his novels
essays and translations
there is a copy out of print and ragged
chapman’s homer
reminiscent of the poet keats in lines like pure serene
the atmosphere of breezes through a window’s aperture
yet balmy and nostalgic as he tumbles down toward the sheets
to dream.

October
there is a portrait of a lady
his idol and his queen
perched and framed atop his desk
recipient of kisses wild and his eyes’ deluge
when he should think so casually
of absence
how she has not escaped him yet as he sits cross-legged
beneath a new-erected poster of a vision
modern and absurd that hangs a menace to her eyes
innocence and worry
that have not felt the gravity of gravities of agony
but feel the feel insidious an urge
of sorts to touch what it is prohibited to touch
in absence
unfulfilled by words of words upon his shelf of faulkner
shakespeare the iliad in ancient greek
he cannot read it
the tissues collect tears he passes off as
milk.

November
inside a rented fridge there is a stale vegetable
she urges him to throw away because it yet reminds her
though she dare not admit it attention redirected
to his blue athletic sneakers strewn haphazardly beneath a whiteboard
with equations
no longer understood
taken from the garish textbook the successor of the chapman
he anticipates to soon have learned enough of greek to read the text
original to stop up his mind with information erudite
one of many treatments for thoughts that roam where they should not
roam
the portrait stands at a distance
from the tissues and the sanitiser
he is obsessed with cleanliness the vacuum
whizzing whirring whimsy is incessant despite housekeeping
of a carpet cream to match the walls to match the
sheets that as a veil guard all of his secrets
hands where they should not be while he rests
waiting.

December
an orange jar of cold white pills
has reached a state of near-depletion
and yet he hunts for more
unrest the unheroic demon of a creature
who flits across fantasia on the wall
in ignorance of street signs regulation within a mind of turmoil
that wraps around in endless labyrinths like boulevards and avenues
sketched into his map
it has gotten cold
she is the eternal visitor in search of a hibernal playfellow
to while away the frost upon his window that just might
destroy them
together beneath bedsheets where he shows her all his secrets
and she retreats in shocks and shivers
an ironic choice the bower of his arms
from which she sees a change upon his desk
the portrait of a lady turned facedown to rest upon its frame
it must have been knocked over by a glacial wind coming from
the window.

January
but now where is the lady
is a question reminiscent of a certain paranoia
has begun to play the broken strings of sanity
that had once comprised a mandolin of mind
a crack that leaks upon her cheekbone as she sets the frame
upright
having found it tossed beneath the bedsheets
upon which he rubs and rubs now confident
before her eyes of having sinned and all the morals turning
dashing wild in a matrix containing that which cannot
but be seen in the days of snow which cannot
exist but buried in the steppes of chilly conscience
torn apart the map that leads nowhere and drives them all
in circles a geometry cartesian euclidian derridian
the latter full of screams uncertainties
ephemeral
just as the flurries through the window shut and barred
an urge to ascertain how it is that he so flawlessly
escaped.