Matthew Word Bain

clouds of censorship
in their resolute darkness
must take on the shape

of what they seek to suppress
while oblique light reveals it

harsh restraints lifted
a buoyant liberation
I know this feeling

industrial brutalism
made beautiful by age
and the warmth of the sun
framed by shadow and blue sky
there is beauty in all things

hovering his way
drifting along the sidewalk
serpentine movement

with the head of a human
and the body of a snake

who is this creature?
this phantom of an image
if I return here

will he still be in this place
if not, where will he have gone?

a neat pile of tires
warming the receding snow
basking in the sun

there is a lot left over
for something that is used up

such stark lines
suggesting someone
with something to say

this tree, literally
& figuratively
beyond the pale
what is its message?
can you feel it?

can you
locate subjective
awareness within its
lived experience?
how does it feel
to be this tree, now?
three years ago?
what caused its death?
did it suffer? is it suffering?
is any part of this tree still alive?

living beings fill the world around us
inhabiting their multivarious physical forms
navigating life by interpreting sensory information
which is to say, feeling
we think of them as less than us
for their want of a cranium like our own

and yet what has driven us to the brink of extinction
if not for our way of thinking without feeling
caught up in emotions and ignorant
of the sensation in our bodies
afraid of it, perhaps, this feeling
while all the time it is there
available to us – that lower intelligence
without which our higher intelligence is pure farce

look at how the road rides high
which came first, I wonder
would an architect
have designed this building
to inhabit this location in this way?

perhaps my perspective is skewed by time
having received a way of seeing things
that was born after this building
was ever conceived of
so that my perception is unwittingly
anachronistic, and just because I imagine the world
always was the way it has been
in my experience
this does not make it so
and my perception and I stand
to benefit from my coming to terms
with the influence of my received opinion
on my own process of understanding
how things came to be this way

and yet, from my years of observations
of the way things are and the way things were
and the way things change over time
I am confident the siting
of this building
adjacent to this road
is a result of road widening
more than an architect’s decision
because roads have a tendency to widen
and buildings have a tendency to stay in place
until the uneasy tension between them
results in the displacement
of one or the other

a row of faces
the inevitable archetype
repeating in glass, brick, metal
watching the world go by
what do they see?
more importantly, to me
how do they feel?

behind this fence
a playground off limits
the yard of a short line railroad
complete with lonely passenger cars…
when, if ever, do these cars carry people?
does the Buckingham Branch Railroad
use them only for private functions?
I travel through this yard by foot
in my inexorable imagination
where every door is open to me
and these cars an invitation to ride
at a leisurely pace with friendly people
verdant lands and tranquil waters on view
through clear windows while those inimitable
sounds of sibilant rhythms intrinsic to rail travel
rise through the swaying floor, pervading space
inviting sleep, accompanying conversations
while the landscape alone is enough
to occupy my traveling mind

the glorious glow
of late day sun, upstaging
the nascent gloaming