Incarcerated Thoughts Poem by richard ilnicki

Incarcerated thoughts are amputated dreams
dangling invisibly over the periphery.
They are phantom limbs
centrally stimulated by the mystery of memory.
Just over the bloody jagged edge
These orphaned appendages are clinging
by a thread
to an existential hope
where scar tissue boundaries are non-existent.

There is no definitive length to the invisible
in this imaginary realm of pain
the pain is real,
and maintaining equilibrium is impossible.

This valley of the shadow of death presents
bones which have been rudely disarticulated;
some have been ripped off the skeleton
by the sound of a face on the phone,
others by the verbal assault designed to humiliate.

Behind these bars
caged equanimity is at enmity with anxiety,
and the whole is no longer equal to the sum of its parts.
A violent division has ensued;
the hemispheres have been rudely cleaved.
Pylons now guard the entrance to the soul,
and coagulated blood has quietly closed the voicebox.

Suddenly struck dumb but not without a vision
howling man like howling mad dog howls.
He is barking at the half moon hanging from the gallows.
Nightly a rupture of herniated expressions
emerges as thoughts without legs to stand on,
and straightjacketed freedom visible to all,
audible to none,
paints the sky with rejection.