Lake

Not everything
Is a mirror;
The disregarded
Tv screen and this
Vacant page do not
Contain you as you
Thrust yourself onto them.

The people you meet
Are not there
To answer
Useless question
After useless question.

The mirror, its insubstantial
Ghosts that flash
As your eyelids blink
Against the onslaught
Of time’s pulse.

It is a mirror
But it does not contain you.

Can you see
Beyond the surface
Of a clear lake
On bright day?

What news is there now
For your dulled eyes?
Blink now.
What is there left
To recognise any longer?
How does a ghost die? Blink
And you’ll miss everything
Stare and your gaze
Will slay the substance
Of things, will cut
Your own throat
With fragments
Of the broken whole.

Cracks and shards
Dusted with lost
Flakes of skin
From a wasted past
Looking for
Something that is lost by
Looking. Grabbing at
Air and dispelling it,
Suffocating yourself.
Blink. The point
Where two eyes
Crossed, strained
Within glass
To meet one
Doubled up
And flipped,
Inverted and
Mirrored
To equal
A snapping.
A severance.
A grand endless
Nothing -
Eternal
And unresting.