Filaments flash in a picture frame

Weaving the story of this undulating game

Waves crest atop shoulders and grasp out at stars

Mountains crash to the shoreside, and into our hearts

The monkeys, with tools, stub their own toe

And the blind bat reaps what he sows

Giraffes topple over from too long a neck

Yet some would gain solace from a long, treacherous trek

I saw a man in a bowler hat

Outlined by a vertical puddle of bright

He tipped his head to me

And glided off into the night

Saving shards of the shimmer before

I wandered the evening, forlorn

Into a river, I hurled my body forwards

A small note rising before the cymbal crash

Black night, black voices, black thoughts

A not-wet sea of negative space

I locked my neck in place

Froze my face upon those stars fading into a growing cornucopia

Dreaming that with enough sternness, strife, inward focus on life

I could melt into the next day

Then I got out of the tub

Dried my eyes, mother's cub

And looked out into the night

Through slants of green gray

I could see what I'd say

Was the man in the bowler hat

Naked was he as he flew towards a star

Flickering out of existence

Shimmering white overtakes

Submerged in a lake

White noise, white light, white thoughts

The black figure winked

I can't make myself think

I thought to myself, my face flat

But one more black object flittered

Down in the glitter

It was the bowler hat