Snapshot

Staring into the sunset, I find myself:
in the warm hues I rediscover my
conscience, guided by the rhythmic
beating of my heart, thump thump,

and at once I feel lost, swallowed
up by unforgiving landscape,
swampy bayou, humidity laden
air, and worse yet, crushed, a
primrose plant in the hand of a
giant, losing what I once had: my form.

I want it all back,
I howl, wolf-like, like in storybooks,
snout upturned to a sliver of moon.

I WANT IT ALL BACK,
louder this time, angry torrent,
endless stream of mind's dissatisfaction.

No longer able to look at the sun
setting directly on a flat horizon,
I grab my camera and begin capturing
moments in time,

capturing them to remember,
in each viewing,
the day I rediscovered what was lost,

capturing them to remember,
in each viewing, desire
to bend the boundaries of
society like a master of glass work,
towards ethereal beauty.

And then sun sets, and dreams fade,
and all I have are these photographs
to remind me of what I want
but cannot seem to have:

caged bird who desires
migration across continents
to test the limits of his flight.

Rather than becoming inspired,
I just grow more desolate, the weight
of centuries and injustices pushing
at my sides, slowly sucking out all the air,
delirium the next step,

I find myself
closer to the precipice of madness,
sooner to become a 21st century
"Howl," best minds of a generation
lost on some otherworldly tangent.

Where is a way out?
Where is a way out?

Outside cloaked in darkness,
I just look at the photographs again,
but nothing new comes to me,
no resolution, no solace,

sunrise, sunrise, bring something new,
I plead, I moan, until I can no more
and peter out, to silence, to sleep.