I remember last September,
My name disappeared
from the crevices of your brain.

I remember last September,
The pain etched deeply in your eyes -
Trying to remember
But forgetting
The name you gave to your own loved child.

I remember last September,
As words fail to then utter my name.

I remember last September,
Tears rolling down your now changed face.

I remember...
Why didn't you remember me no more?

The echo still pounds down onto the ceilings; wide based feelings, detached from the vain faces of sanity, denounced by reason: Dementia! Still chanting to the pace of galloping fiddles, in the stream of the night!

A.r. Bazian

I spy something
Murky red
And in the
Bottom of my cup.
I wash it down with
Something less than
Reluctant
While leaving the
Rust,
Or assumed iron,
To chance,
This one chance
And not to be
Repeated.

Tomorrow,
Now today,
I spy something
Murky red,
Once more tomorrow,
Tomorrow’s tomorrow,
Again and again
And day after days,
Rusty red
In the bottom of my
Cup –
I grow paranoid.

I empty the
“Keep,”
And creep into every
***,
Tea-***,
Pan and/or
Cooking tool
Seeking
Threatening material,
Foreign material,
And lodged in my brain
Material.

So too,
Amid my investigations,
I’d discovered
Alzheimer’s,
Dementia,
Blindness,
A stroke or two,
And in some cases
Death
Had you ingested enough
Ore,
Or so I’ve heard.

I spy
Metal flakes
Atop
Metal constructs,
Heavy,
Soft, caustic,
And broken post
Point-of-sale,
Broken
And now in me,
Circulating through my –
Spleen,
Kidney
And brain.

I’ve developed a
Phobia
For unwanted edible metal,
A curious
Cereal
Resulting from the
Cartoon
Of my
Dying grandfather,
Once an architect,
Now ten minutes to
Tie shoes –
A brain hemorrhaged
Iron, I’m sure of it.

oh darling
i have something to tell you
i met this boy once,
his name was blue.

blue had the face of a man
michelangelo would paint.
he told me he loves art and
that is why he loves me.

my hair was a tangled mess
yet he liked the chaos it holds.
he liked the chaos so much,
he went to the middle of one.

blue went to my house the night
they shaved his hair
i whispered sounds of sorrow
as they took him away.

oh my darling,
why'd you hit that wall?
you know that i love you, blue
why did you suddenly growl?

i watched as you hung your head
i look at your face
and it feels like the way it was
before you went away

i stared at the blank canvas
that is all above us
oh darling i have something to tell you
your face lit with solid confusion

oh darling
i have something to tell you
i met this boy once
his name was blue.