Protocol Prison

Inspired by a portrait on display at a Prado Lounge Café Bar.

Portrait in Prado Lounge Café Bar (artist unknown to author)

Marbled fingers,
pen in hand,
barely gripped –
just placed
to sign.

With
inkless nib.

Hands not his own –
dummy’s hands,
Top Shop hands.
Wrists detached,
concealed by
golden-wrist watch.

Arms that exhale
hair, growing;
sinews, fleshed over,
long, thin, stringy,
gluing muscles to bone.

Spasms of feeling,
of pain, messages
from a red-pumping
heart, faltering, needing
to be heard.

Neurons take aim,
signals push and shove,
seek passages;
synapses,
bugle for
living brain.

A brain in situ;
howls frozen,
foxed.

Pen and thoughts
disconnected

by
others.

A protocol
prison.

Copyright owned by Jay Cool, September 2018