NOT THERE STILL NOW

 

My friend leaned out

Of a second story window

Of a wood slat 19th century

House slapped together

For Maine mill workers

And said I always wondered

What it would be like

To go mad

It was a bad experience

From which he did not return

But could have I think

Even as he had stopped

Forward motion

Or was receding

A march back up the ladder

Might have engaged

With enough time movement

And experiments

And failures

The state he entered

At the end

Was like he was

Demetabolizing

In order to pass through

A bank vault door

But had become stuck

Undone into particles

Trapped midway through passage

Within the mineral plane

Halted vibrating

At too high

A frequency to feel well

And too low

To move through

I hope he is not

There still now

I don't think he is

After he left

An information bulletin

Kept arriving in my mind

He was somewhere else

Solving what he couldn't here