i. Angel’s Stone

                    A statue stands in the middle
of the little temple of my
mind, impossible not to look
at as in my memory I
go by, the one which a week from
now will find its way deep into
the hanging garden of my own
sobriety’s better judgment,
removed by a conquest not of
kings or of vandals, but of grounds-
keepers and janitors sent by
hospital staff to sanitize
my thoughts of the size of its head
and the height of its pedestal
too large for one man, they said, so

          ii. Holy Sepulchre

                    they carve it down like a great red-
wood or a triumphal column
cut it down at the aching feet
and transport it to the garden
where patients on passes wander
wondering if they’ll ever get
out, or even recover, if
the team that removed my genius
and my jeans before strapping me
down, will take them out instead, hands
unaware that that genius sent
me running the whole length of the
city’s longest street in bare feet
along an aching avenue
of waking dreams, sprinting past dawn

          iii. Genii of the Storeroom

                    beyond monsters with guns making
nightmares seems inconsequential
marathoning against reason
to take the prize of my lost glimpse
of anything like sanity
and they cut down my genius when
they found me outside an Audi
dealership, balancing my toes
on the curb, terrified to step
down into the road, uncertain
of where to go, or if those men
were truly cops & paramedics
tongue trembling with doubt’s taste, knowing
only madness itself is an
involuntary admission.