Remembrances Of The Chemistry Laboratory Poem by RIC BASTASA

this is the middle of the journey
there are many more mirages

illusions to uncover, deaths to conquer,
more time is devoted to filtering doubts,

decanting those seemingly insignificant
experiences, purifying the adulterated

legacies of great human thoughts,
digesting the chunks of abrupt and

wholesale misgivings, powdering those
less understood, mixing with mercury

to extract the gold in those passing years,
poisoning the mind, destroying everything

unacceptable, dissolving failures,
subjective processes, finally getting nothing

but kernels, a little chaff, on the petri dish
inoculated bacteria, tested with fire,

eyes gazing at the clouds from the window
of the sixth floor.