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  1d Mike Adam
irinia
I feel time running like a wild animal tnrough my body
the air might hide from itself in the frenzy of an embrace
the molecules of emotion create the music of muscles, of spheres
I watch this momentum of life unfolding, rising and decreasing
passion feeds the wind, the waters, the eartquakes, it dances on liminal edges
bound and unbound the pulse of creation, of destruction
I am so very quiet, as quiet as the retina that translates the light
when the light touches you my optic nerves get burned but look
how strange,
I see further away into the clarity of hands
Settle in the corner where the cat sometimes curls,
Where the painting of chrysanthemums hangs
Free of all Distraction-

Where the single vase of tiny flowers
Sits and a solid lump of stone rests
Volcanoes
Oceans
Moons and women only they

Know how to flow
In the shadow of the Cairo
(yellow-bodied, stony-crowned,

its high and untroubled brow
gazing over our fleeting forms

as we scamper to small habits)
I think of you O love, though

(rain heads are drifting east
in humid fists of fat vapor,

air hangs in cloying squares)
the city is all alcoholic laughter.

Or maybe that's me projecting
(I grew up in a green country

with cornstalk and cow, my room
brimmed with book and song;

after that first divorce I collapsed
down into a city that teemed

with such friendly drink, helped me
forget a clever father who left me,

a lock-in mother who didn't care,
forget sweethearts waltzing away,

friends turning and fading, fires
I ate as they ate me in turn).

Now it's a hundred and change
in the Cairo's shade and I think

of you, sweet one. This yellow king
sweeps a wide view over the bake

of the block as I wander down
to finish your teal. (O, I'm alone,

always alone, but with you
I'm a little less aware of it).

Stay with me and touch me -
remind me why I'm still alive.
Completed in 1894, in the Egyptian style popular at the time, The Cairo is Washington DC's tallest residential building.
I ended up at the wrong time,
in the wrong place,
carrying a dead flashlight
that instead of shining,
offered me an elusive shape—
a spectacle of shadows.

What was a hand
became a dog barking on the wall,
or a ghost-rabbit
vanishing into nothingness.

My rational “I” still asks why,
and I have no answer.
I just smile with sadness:
that was the script,
that had to happen.

Bittersweet medicine,
already swallowed,
the side effects dissolved.
And I boarded another train.

Writing?
I only wanted an ordinary life,
with some humor
and a pinch of self-irony.

Saturn joined,
Saturn divided,
at 8:18 a.m.

Maybe we humans
don’t have the stillness
to break free from the pattern
of silver rings
made of dust and ice,
imposed by an ego.

Maybe we prefer
the safety of the shadow,
ice melts in daylight.

My story:
a new-old flat,
my imperfect poems…
Really?
For this, I was made?

I’m not a poet.
I’m a living voice,
taming incomprehension
convincing myself
that dawn is near,
and I’m strong enough to rise,
not looking anymore
for cold mirrors.
This poem is my way of catching a moment when something that once felt real and meaningful slowly turns into just a shadow, a projection, an illusion. I wanted to show how reality can sometimes feel surreal, and how easy it is to mistake a reflection for the real thing, like in Plato’s cave. We often fall for false impressions. The image of the hand’s shadow on the wall becoming a barking dog or a disappearing rabbit is my way of speaking about disappointment and coming to terms with what happened.
For me, every poem is also like a diary, a way of keeping things I do not want, or maybe cannot, forget. I try to leave space for different interpretations, but what matters most to me always stays hidden underneath. To me, the hand in the poem has already become a shadow. And somehow, even if it makes no sense, the shadow still casts another one. It feels like a game of broken telephone with consciousness. Scattered pieces only make sense to me as a whole.
in between the seam
of day

and evening
the entirety of the sky

and the november leaves
cinder in the same glow

the streets
and sidewalks are stained

with autumn impastos
in our arc

we wax
and wane

the many moons
our course permanently burnt

with the colors
of departure

and return
soon

in winter’s patient keep
we will close our eyes

and fill our dreams
with release
Mike Adam Jul 1
I shall go down to the dump today
to pick up a random thought
and translate it into
a first language
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