220 - Images

Images
By Joseph C. McLelland

These images are killing me; they hide
the substance of our world like
canvas scenery upon a stage
a front of mimicry, dimensionally barren.

Among the images of what we think we are
pretend to be or else
attempt to match-here we move and, enact
the mirage of our life together.

When you confuse the image and the real
how do you know your self and
whether you are really there
where others look and greet and love and hate?

Have we created them, facades in which we strut
like children at charades with borrowed clothing
much too big for us? If so
then let us kill them.

Cut clean through the personal veils and
institutional corsetry- no blood
will flow, only a puff of smoke or perhaps
mimeographed statistics, expiring in triplicate.

What sword to use? Measure the distance
(oh, infinite distance)
between image and reality-such disproportion
warrants only humor. The art of the comic
sees things as they really are.

For Christ's sake then-laugh it up.