Self-Portrait With Kleshas

[rowens]

Self-Portrait With Kleshas


Hat, tramp-style suit,
atop a side-
walk hill. Tree stump.
Safeguarding town;
shaded root severed.

Cold scrapes face, as
commercial scraps
fill cat and bum.
Windows turn to
mirrors with love.

Vision and loins
with lungs pulsing
obsessions. Flies
in their ointment.
Notes of fair praise
write and tiff air.

Raptors and clouds
loiter the sun;
where romance mars
so many lines—
—held:
    but not by
heaven
    or ground.

Wind . . .
    it soars through
nothing, itself.

A sad, dry sea,
the land around
a room.—Listen
to the needless,
current draft blow.
Truth, a thing in
itself. And of.