Devery Landrum

Prison Orange Sunsets
 
tiresome gray skies rain unforeseen plaque
to tangle threads spooled perfect to unravel you
over imagined buttonholes, keys and locks  
that fingers fail to task; a consciousness robbed.
your tapestry somberly hangs tattered in memory,
reflects the fragility you have become.

     spin, spin, awake enough to recall
     mementos saved gift the days souvenirs.
     your magic with numbers made your mind’s frontier,
     a world where neurons created your heirloom windfall.
     spun, spun, awoke enough to be all
     we needed.  you made living “us” a career,
     a constellation of love in your atmosphere
     a memoir written by love of life and its pitfalls.
     these orange hues imprison autumn sunsets
     for me to bathe and feed you; your care returned.
     yet, imprudent gods wrote code that marred your brain
     let’s kiss before life is all blue regrets
     i’ll whisper in your ear, words for which you yearn,
     however the synapses are wired, you’ll go insane.

do i know me when i see me?  do you?  
do i know you when i see you? who knows? 
who used to be me?  who used to be you? time tells
the mind to glimpse particles of ourselves, floating,
in etherized crazed invisible rants and raves 
reciting we’re twins fraternal, known to unknown.

you wander the streets mindless of life’s dangers.
by chance i find you.  you remember we’re strangers.  

Devery Landrum has worked as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker specializing working
with children and adolescents for over twenty years.  He has been writing poetry
since he was in high school and has had poems in The San Fernando Journal, Blindman’s Rainbow, Writer’s Cramp, Sounds of Poetry, The Sunday Suitor Poetry Review, Lucid Moon, and the Society of American Poets.  He is a member of The Writers Center in Bethesda MD.