I

Summer's sky is there, but is not.
Summer's stars so bright, are long dead
 and dying in their ponderous, sweeping ways.

Flowers whose sweet flowers
 are not faces, but rays of light
 which hum in my eye.

These words, whose sinuous waves roll
 for a time in my chambered ear or eye,
 are not.
 

II

I saw once beyond true deception, saw
 signs of a higher rising,
 of a deep converging.

My hand, my words, these acts
 I do not commit; they
 are not what they seem.

Below all this lies a realm,
 populated by dark and probably sinister beings,
 who move like masked divers in a deep sea.
 

James Bolner, Sr.
Baton Rouge
1990