Fred Ostrander
The Escape
As one, denied bread, escapes, runs
helplessly into the upper rooms, a memory refuge,
his unfollowable disappearance,
His madness that spreads behind his eyes, symboled by flames,
a corona of flames behind those circles, his eyes
Subdued by attendants to docility
medicated and strangely tranquil
placed back out upon the curb
into his forgetting. He will live beneath the heat grate.
His unshared Hell, everywhere, like movie-flames upon a building.
Some Satan changing shape, a structural alteration of faces
mocking, taunting.
With masks they act out the roles in his theater
of sorrowing queens and defeated kings
in western forests and green northern seas.
Sadly. In the confinement of flames
awake or asleep,
this hell without end that occurs between his hands
that are held to his ears in his desperate escape
Or how they beguile him
into the Sweet dream
from which he would make no effort to return.
These satans call him by his early name
who bargains his soul for simply silence.
helplessly into the upper rooms, a memory refuge,
his unfollowable disappearance,
His madness that spreads behind his eyes, symboled by flames,
a corona of flames behind those circles, his eyes
Subdued by attendants to docility
medicated and strangely tranquil
placed back out upon the curb
into his forgetting. He will live beneath the heat grate.
His unshared Hell, everywhere, like movie-flames upon a building.
Some Satan changing shape, a structural alteration of faces
mocking, taunting.
With masks they act out the roles in his theater
of sorrowing queens and defeated kings
in western forests and green northern seas.
Sadly. In the confinement of flames
awake or asleep,
this hell without end that occurs between his hands
that are held to his ears in his desperate escape
Or how they beguile him
into the Sweet dream
from which he would make no effort to return.
These satans call him by his early name
who bargains his soul for simply silence.
Page(s) 30
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