jasper told a story

of four faces bearing blind witness

with jutting chins and cheekbones,

lips and noses cached in cubbyholes

sustained by primary pigments:

we are wax figurines, flat in the lambency of artificial light,

hunched and anonymous on a street corner

fused into one another by latent understanding

skin smeared oil on canvas

closed shops with revolving doors still spinning

beginning and ending in concentric cycles

simplistic riddles succinct against an alienated sky

--

we keep the colors separate--labeled and alone

although sharp in their contrast, they bleed the same

red-blue paint mixed in violet veins, perspective

distilled by the translucency of time

the rabid artist splashed his tale over newsprint and plaster

with cacophonic strokes amplified in silence

controlled violence connected by creaking hinges

hanging in the balance between society and self:

conflicted semantics in chromatic denial

cold and abstract, the four-faced overseer

flaps the door in ceaseless provocation, sniggering

because we have been shut out by ourselves