self portrait #14: days off

self portrait #14: days off

i reinvent the wheel
on my days off because
“an idle mind is useless”

but my mind tends to
insidiously torment and
self destruct in tandem

so i hide myself behind
this surreptitiously placed
cloak of pronouns and
strategically placed pretenses

i reinvent the wheel
on my days off because
using the first person really
forces reality onto my place

and the rest has already
been said before on
my days off

copy right JANEisnotplain 8/07

SELF PORTRAIT #10

self portrait # 10




words compose me
but i am not
words alone

you cannot freeze
me into a strict
solid form

i am a-live
i am not very spontaneous
yet neither am i fixed

streams of words flow
within. into. out of.
me until i am

un- [abandoned]

copyright JANEisnotplain 2.07

SELF PORTRAIT #13: i am

self portrait #13: i am



I AM

a brush stroke of expectation
a convenient mirror cracked by patience
twisted up in bunches of flowers that
only make me weaker as i try to fill space


I AM

a rubbery poem and the figure to go with it
a shadow you make love to
in order to compose yourself
brick by riddle by brick

I AM

the kind of fire you don’t have to kindle
the flames reflect on waves
the oxygen exists by misgivings
so that every breath i breathe is forgiving

I AM

losing my grip on the graphite that
certifies the sketches in my head
a disaster of nerves battling
starlight and sunrise intentions

I AM

a model of your history
all the things you cant see
you cant remember and i can’t take anymore
just fall in scribbles collapsed on the floor

I AM

your fault


copyright JANEisnotplain 1.07

self portrait #12: fall nightmare

self portrait #12: fall nightmare



i am running through my
nightmares wearing flip flops
and all i can hear is
breathe, flap, breathe, flap
flap, breathe, breathe, flap
across a cold linoleum floor
stacked with the smell of papers
of books, newspapers, notebooks
slouched in the flickering fluorescent lights
like next year’s junk addicts
flap flap flap flap
breathe!
and if i stop i hear the
buzzing of my PC
sitting and looking at me for answers
just the way i look at myself
just after brushing my teeth
in the morning or in the
evening after listening to
the radio/television propaganda
the semicolon weight of the words
awake!
flap, breathe, flap, breathe



copyright JANEisnotplain 10.06

self portrait #11: self evaluation

self portrait #11: self evaluation

in my obscure act of living watchful eyes fall mute
never joys of self denied time passes blithely
by persuasion i am a challenging being

my smile has grown lewd with depravity
my growth does not need restraint anymore
i am fed with sour doubt and terror

in soothing words and touches of care
i have felt only poor relief from
the asperity of being and the despair of being not.

suffers the bud under the pressure of fate
to break the sprout and stretch out into the air
to grow accustomed to the confirming confinement.

because i wish to break open the pain
the ice cold blade of thought incises the abscess
perhaps that will free the pleasure?

copywrite JANE 6.06

self portrait # 10 Reflection 06.06.

self portrait # 10 Reflection 06.06.

my senses are embedded

deep within mind’s monastery of

monks scribbling to focus and copy

texts of my emotions into a

record of  feeling some reality

felt in a subconscious unable to wake

from dreams of disappearing

heart beats on canvas skin of

irreplaceable prints of significance

every one a unique identity of me

JANEisnotplain 6.06

SELF PORTRAIT #9 : IF I WERE A PAINTING

self portrait #9: if i were a painting


if i were a painting
i’d be blurred contours
thick with texture and mystery

id be of limited colour
with smudged grey outlines
and razor sharp white streaks
added as an afterthought

i would not be done with precision
but abstract and surreal
a conceptual work instead of
clear and defined

id be loving irony
in soft diminutive glimpses
of paradise blues

id be thin vivid lines of
orange and yellow worked over
red glimpses through thick
grey and black minutes
forced into green shadows

my mind would be
empty boxes with blue lines
pointing to something like
the soul

my heart would be a
red square in black lines
beating difference


i would be studied
but never understood
and it would be never
before anyone noticed the
viole[n]t streak in this
backdrop of red
worked over black

copyright JANEisnotplain 2006