Nowhere Man


He’s a real Nowhere Man

Shivering in his hazmat suit

Cowering behind his border fence

Waving his gun at the shadows inside his head.


He fears the dark, he fears the light.

He fears the colors.

He thinks the world has changed

When all it’s done is move on.

The Chaotic Sea


We are all adrift on a raging sea, in boats of all sizes

Some tiny, some huge,

Most barely more than cardboard boxes.


Tempest-tossed and turned, all will perish

Some on Charybdis, some in Scylla,

Most from the enervating exhaustion of navigating shoals.


We would die alone, drowning in sorrow and filth

None will live, none will survive.

All will sink deep from the sun’s sight.


A great deep sea awaits us, none can avoid.

Some embrace it, some fear it,

Most know not about it, and go about their lives.


Living as if built inside a glass bottle.

The world moves about them, but they know not of it.


Glittering Disaster


She left me in the lurch

Like a lonely groom at the church

In the spring.


Memories of a happier

Time fade like a chalk drawing

In the rain.


Replaced by the blackness

Of the tunnel in the wake

Of a train.


I try to drown my sorrows

But only I go farther and farther

Down the drain.


My friends and hers console,

Call me, but no need

To explain.


A glittering disaster

Of shattered alabaster,

My illusions lie in ruins

At my feet.

Fog of War


An arrow sizzled out of the roar

of the night And knifed into my back.

I writhed in agony, the terror of pain

As my eyes faded to black.


Egyptian escalator focused my dreams

Of the things that I lack.

The dread of the wood, fear of the limb

Stopped me dead in my track.


Bitter smell of rolling leaves brought

My mind to wake, the places I’d leave,

The people I’d bleed, the vows I would break.


I am alone, crawling through a forest

My mind, my heart, know no rest.

The darkness sneaks in, blessed.

The darkness bleeds in blessed.


Arguing with you is like

Catching an excellent bird

You move your tongue

But utter not a word.


My volleys land in marsh

By your ears unheard.

A sky fire rises in the north

And covers half the world.


Time holds no meaning

And space holds no form

As blood pulses and throbs

From leg to heart to arms.


The evil in your heart

My love would warm

Fool that I am to love you

After you have long gone.


My eyes are unfocused.

My tongue is slurred.

You had your chance

You only had to keep your word.


Some Fantastic Place

The half light leads the way

From the night to the day

Our lives lived in the shadow

Become exposed

And so we know

What stuff dreams are made of:

Of clay and iron and lacquer paint

And colliding cars.

All original images and original text © 2014, 2015 Carl Salonen dba Creating Imagery

I Dive In


Her rhythmic siren song fills my ears

As I nestle gently in her bosom, rocking

She beckons me with her music by a deep blue melody.


A deep breath, an exhale, another

And hold on for dear life itself


The champagne bubbles fizzle about me

As they dissipate,the great kaleidoscope comes into focus

A firework of yellow and red and orange, blue and green

Dazzling colours and glowing, shining silver and gold.


The sweaty colours swirl and mix like ethereal pinwheels

Blurs and smears and streaks and stripes

Her skirt unravels and flows.


Down, down, down I go, enraptured and enslaved

Like a willing servant, I offer up my heart as payment for her favors

Each flick, each glimpse, each flip, like gooseflesh on a hot summer’s day

I linger over her mounds, exploring her meticulous beauty slowly


I slip between her fronds and drift to her stem.

I look up.

I observed being observed.

There is no sound but the roar of an ocean in her lungs.


Weightless, timeless, days in an hour.

We embrace and tumble through the chaos of colour

Creatures great and dangers small parade by.


Finally, time has come of age: exhausted and breathing my last, I float skyward

Piercing the heat, I climb up

And once more, rock gently in her sodden samba.

Five Dreams


A sunny, sultry, sandy beach

Two chairs, two drinks

Footsteps to the sea

A warm, calm, azure bay

To stare too far

Horizons of the sea


A flashing flare of firefight

Two guns, two men

The red pool tide to the street

A smoky thick grey day

To bear to the grave

A grudge buried six feet


A windswept white wasteland

Too frozen, too fallow

A blanket of snow and ice

A bright sunny icicle day

To promise to the future

Of a coming paradise


A deep dark dive below

Two fins, two hands

Fin flips to the sea

A cold black surging depth

To drown, too far

A graveyard in the sea


A puffy pink playpen of cotton

Two parents, two children

A wide swing towards the sun

A warm sunny gentle breeze

To forget, to ignore

The dirt-covered box about him