Poem:  The Key 

It must be here,

that thing, near, 

I think, I believe,

when I feel it,

I’ll know. 

I’ll put hands in brain,

my ones and noughts, 

I’ll rifle, ransack,

retrain my thoughts, 

I’ll grope down to find by the bottom-most rung

a hidden Houdini curled in his trunk

chain bound,

mouth stoppered with wrath

data drunk.

Lessons unbridled wind his face round, 

his writhing face,

sick of questions, demands,

wild spun yarns,

that won’t let in, 

the door closed,

the way unsigned,

the realness denied,

the rising din. 

Clattering circles roll in.

Push on, you always said,

til apparitioning ahead,

See!  The mists thin.

I’ll catch Wisdom herself. 

I’ll snare the elusive gilded bird of knowing, showing me I’ll flee my past.

Nearly there now, push ...

one … last ...

You arc

grab in the dark,

flailing now,

one final fluttering,

oooossh ... uttering:

Got it!

Now you clutch the solution self-taught,

the resolution sought,

that such which you caught.

You wheel it, coax it,

urge it to turn, provoke it to learn.

It twists in your grip. 

Teeth bite lip.

And there then stands facing, a mirrored you.

Cranky at your yanking.

And in your certain hand you hold, tight

no victories manifold

no visions till then untold - right?

No blistering re-birth of soul.

Rather the piss-dank tail of your own behind.

Not ranking in enlightenment 

of eagerly earned entitlement, 

your grasp of the situation, 

your life’s station:

the sad wanking of your own appendage.

Endage.