By: Bruce McRae

The Mystery Man

His atoms were formed inside exploding stars.
He’s not at home on any planet.

Grace. Élan. Savoir faire.
Attributes beyond his ken and reckoning.

He stands outside in the heaving rain.
And how else does one capture lightning?

I’m going to sleep like baby Jesus tonight.
This statement typifies his on-going inner dialogue.

All things are not possible to all men.
Which is why he reconnoiters the impossible.

Behind his mask is another mask, and so on.
At the core of his being is a little blue sun.

“It was so dark I could not find myself.”
Thus ends the master of illusion.

###

Tree

A tree like a tree.
A tree like a crack in the daylight.
Like Death’s standard
in a luxuriant primeval forest.
The last tree standing.
The one tree,
from which all others descend.

A tree that’s a hat rack.
A skyhook. A lunatic’s scrawl.
Like a lightning bolt.
Like a flagpole,
an army defeated, a war lost.
A tree from the original garden,
with waxen fruit
and smart-mouthed serpent.
Our lone guardian.
A raven’s precipice.

Like a hand thrown up against the wind.
Like ink spilt. Like a train of blood.
A tree that’s an ugly cicatrix.
A map to be lost in.
The helix twisted.
A gallows in the market square,
where the innocent hang
when pleading their madness.

###

Uprising

A bee in your bonnet,
they used to say.
A minor cause or concern.
A niggling worry.
A sliver in the lion’s paw,
little mouse,
putting voice to ire,
and there is much to rail against;
the revolution, brethren,
is far from over.
And that buzzing you hear?
That pretty bonnet?
It’s all for burning.