Inhalation (a poemstorything)

Flash from a camera, old kind I’ve never held

Bulb cracks hot, pops on the asphalt

Dazzle captures as a still

leaping figure –

Likely man – why man, I don’t know, easier for them to get away –

no grandmother’s bruised circles waiting to push through their skin

around the evening mirror, no blue but black and white

Cut out cardboard puppet running fleeing chasing striving dying

around the corner – not here

leaving behind warehouse brick old or new city bone and to the right

open-ness

emptiness

breath between rain-slicked stone

the wilderness in to which the prisoner

tries to go home

Before siren, before shout, shot

Before a loaded brush pigment sky,

gives the whisper of a name to the guy

There is gauze on the lens, grease across the lines,

the rail points on the fence catch hands more impression

than/then defined

• can I call it mine?

A word of explanation – as I’ve been going through older files, I came across this “piece.” I believe this is the result of being challenged to “envision” what “inspiration” looks like for me. And I went for an image I have probably seen in some old movie at some time. How would you describe your inspiration?