Long Grey Lines [rev] Poem by Margaret Alice Second

‘tis strange, so very strange; my inner timetable
doesn't mesh with the office hours - it seems my
mental gyroscope's unbalanced & my life ship's
battered by invisible winds, thus every hour feels
like a whole day in which I enter another cross-
section of cyclic time - & that stretches in every
direction and on into infinity - while I drift on the
surface of a single horizontal line

I have fun briefly, relaying words for a few seconds
then my system short-circuits and my mind aborts
as my head explodes - after adding salt to my tea
I feel better and resume my languorous trip among
little groups of clustered words, the storm abating;
then existence grows transparently thin again and
the shining white marble monuments of meaning I
have carefully constructed melt - becoming the
most delicate of lace before disappearing

The frothing waves of thoughts I relish in sink into
sands of nothingness and all that‘s left is dappled
reality consumed by cold, sad, opaque transiency;
while the beautiful fountain of wisdom dries up, the
long hours become many aeons slowly flowing in
long grey lines