Sleeper Cell

This entry is part 29 of 37 in the series Bridge to Nowhere: poems at mid-life

 

Let yourself in—
use any key that fits.
Be kind to the parrot in the mirror
who doesn’t know what he’s saying,
there in that cage that looks
so much like your face.
No one is on this, not even you.
Call the numbers you find
on certain benches in the park
& leave messages consisting of
precisely timed moments of silence.
Words can’t be trusted.
Be sure to forget your dreams
immediately upon waking
& remove all traces of any nocturnal emissions.
If sleep apnea develops,
treat with a didgeridoo
to reboot your breathing:
go deeper.
Let yourself down
with knotted bedsheets, gingerly,
through what used to pass for moonlight
in the age of aluminum.

Series Navigation← Two-line haikuUnchurched →

11 Replies to “Sleeper Cell”

    1. Yeah, this was a half-hour job. (But Luisa sometimes writes hers in as little as ten minutes! I know because there for a while last winter, she was in the habit of writing them immediately after I posted the prompting post at The Morning Porch.)

  1. It’s from childhood TV exposure, I’m still buzzing with half-life from a cartoon. The phrase was a Rosetta stone to an alien robot’s language.

    I’m remembering all this? I must have been activated.

  2. A CODE OF SILENCE

    Who will tell you, or know what to tell you,
    what you have been pieced together for?

    Were you not made to wait for that one call?
    Words, numbers, cannot be trusted. Silence.

    That would be your only language. Muted. Wait
    in resigned silence, like the alloyed moonlight

    slipping past your silken bivouac into another
    night of waiting for a Silence on the sheets.

    No one is on this, no codes were made to break;
    nothing works except silence, suppliant/defiant.

    When your call comes, pray do not use the door,
    but climb down your cell from your window sill,

    clambering down clutching knotted sheets, like
    the thief descending on an airborne carpet…

    Against the obscured moonlight, your shadow
    disappears. This time, keep your grave’s silence.

    —Albert B. Casuga
    09-06-11

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.