richard ilnicki Poems

With serrated lids of tin cans for hands
the wind came from dead center.
An algebraic unknown
hung around its invisible throat like original sin.
...

Spontaneous human combustion, that evacuating scream,
erupts suddenly without a trace of fire;
the necessary conditions for combustion do not exist.
This metaphysical phenomenon
...

Spangled with pink
by the blue sky's dropping
of fantasy. I'm cornered
like a starved rat
...

Sometimes change comes
as if by accident; some unexpected
tectonic event, a paradigm shift
that moves the earth beneath our feet.
...

They say my voice dosen't carry very far;
it reminds them of the sound of flatulence
which barely breaks the wind
and is embarrassingly odorless.
...

When they saw me
on my back eyes

fixed to the ceiling,
...

Paradoxical respiration
catches me off guard
and turns my logic upside down.
My left brain becomes my right brain
...

This morning I became an eyewitness
to a theophany,
an express manifestation of God;
this time He was in the make-up bag.
...

love me tender
or do not love me at all,
unless, of course,
you plan to love me
...

When they put my wife summarily
into a psychiatric ward
for her own good
and for the good of others
...