The Projection Room

The projection room oh the
room of lustrous marionettes oh the
earth-mind of the wandering light oh the
projection room.

I’m afraid of the water’s echoing rhyme,
especially in the splishsplash shallows of the shoals of my youth
when there’s no-one else around,
I get the ripple of the shirt-haunch.

I don’t want to see the ripple of hollow sheets -
of all the cavorters of projection rooms, it is the one I fear most.
I’d rather have a plank of this vanquisher of belly-void
and watch the death of days on my dancemaker of light.

I am the superstitious bamboo of unborn children,
I’m the worst in the forest of known trees.
Never walk under slant struts of the heavenly clamber,
I keep the bud of the cotton-jack.

I’ll take you up on the prompt of the breacher -
any frame-frozen room,
name the room, I’ll be there,
brazen on the spittle-rope of vertigo

The projection room oh the
room of lustrous marionettes oh the
earth-mind of the wandering light oh the
projection room.

So after the indices of encyclopedias have been read out
I know I’m not the only one.
The projection room can whirl with carnival-glee
if you want it enough.

At certain indices, living out your cloud-projections
isn’t as easy as it seems.
You want to fly around the labyrinth of rooms
in a beautiful thought-bubble. 

Joe Turrent