Chuck Close

feels like a prison,

some overcast days,

cell to cell to cell,

lunch break and a short workout in the yard,

keep my defenses up,

no eye contact,

home is where I lock the bars closed again,

 

I cut the dreary, drizzling silence,

with beats from the Shaolin slums,

shatter the illusion of ego,

scatter the pieces across a grid,

each a small painting,

in-itself,

for-itself,

only left disoriented,

and unhinged,

 

if you don't step back,

to see the reality,

of the coherency,

of the picture.