Content Warning: dark themes

Kelly Neal - Identity

Some lunatic spends nights

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writing poems to people who

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exist only in imagination.

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Not that they are not real- -

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the people are, like Blake’s angels,

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occluded from blood and flesh - -

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conglomerations of desires

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for what he wished to say,

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but could not say - - then

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swirled with the other’s tongue,

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he’s wound within his day;

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’til, he’s howling at the moon:

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I sing a song out of tune

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to create my you with me

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(from: "Arcana,"  November 14, 2013)

Kelly Neal was born and raised in South Texas. As soon as he was able, he left for Austin where he now writes and teaches. He is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin, and Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English. Before he started teaching, Kelly worked as a baker at a local French bakery. Poetry, (reading, writing, and teaching it,) has helped hold him together for decades. He has had a smattering of poems published over the last few years.

Artwork: Identity by Donna Neal (Identity is part of a collaborative project based on the major Arcana of the tarot)

Donna Neal is a visual artist who lives in Austin, Texas with her cats, and the artist and raconteur, Bill Rinehart. She received her BFA from the University of Texas at Austin. You can see more of her work at http://www.firethornstudio.com/ and www.facebook.com/Firethorn.Studio