Poetry in Vitro - Vol 3, No. 7

The Fear of Open Faces

Hell is other people!
--------------------------- Jean Paul Sartre


Tonight they gather to his credit; drink
to his name. Laughter hangs on the clothesline
of his liquored breath. He notes the first increments:

preliminary steps towards the scaffold
where disdain for the social is built;
the crawl down a fire escape
away from the flame of open spaces --
the burning skies of free discourse.

Trapped in that place between
agoraphobic alibis and the embrace
of the dramaturgical. He feels suffocated
by intrusive faces and the pungent smell
of Homo Sapiens Sapiens - Humanity twice removed
would suit him fine right about now.


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first appeared – Spring 2004 – Snow Monkey