Prisoner Of Disguise Poem by Kurt Philip Behm

The words flock together
and stretch on the frame

Their meaning runs over
still wet from the pain

The canvas is porous
the easel maligned

The curtains blow outward
faces calling in mime

The streets all a-chatter,
it was Paris in spring

And striving to look busy
the most important of things

Looking back at my window
above the tannery so high

A shadow stares back
—and I flee in disguise

(Villanova Pennsylvania: June,2016)