Chris Solomon
On Something Seen in an Old Building One Evening from inside the Lunch-Bar across the Road
The saint appears.
Two narrow gothic slits of light
Window his descent down stairs
To an imagined interior night.
At least it may have been a saint,
Statistics do not rule it our;
I caught a figure robed, head bent,
The attitude of the devout.
Dissolving glimpses such as this
Continually recrystallize,
Stirring both the head and heart
Beyond the retina’s brief part.
Cause and effect interreact
Precipitating hybrid notions,
For instance how these things connect
With logic and emotion —
Were heart and mind homogenized
And outwardly expressed,
The smile resulting round the lips
Would seem the saint’s faint compromise.
Not a smile but an ingrown sigh,
With roots of air and fire,
Consuming in its actualness
Abstractions such as heart and mind.
Extrapolations from feigned saints
Lead self to what self knows of self;
Interpretations of chance sights
Interpret me, not what I see.
The gothic spaces hum with light
Against the quiet of the night.
I swirl cold coffee in my cup.
And see myself when I look up.
Page(s) 22
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