I salute you little man,
sitting in your easy chair,
watching the kaleidoscope of life.
The flickering images,
yours to interpret, to filter,
to massage into a lump of the thought
you desire, devour, project.
No one knows who you really are,
hiding behind the screens of experience,
emotions, beliefs, scraps and bits.
Dorothy’s curtained wizard manipulating,
pulling stage ropes, flipping the switches.
Each time the mouth speaks,
you are the hand choosing the words.
Every instance a touch is felt,
you are the sense given.
The heart and brain only apparatuses
to contain you, comfort you, feed you.
A masochistic misologist person,
twisted, distorted by grappling
with your own contradictions.
I love you and I loathe you,
the ying and yang of my soul,
infantile patriarchal spark with in.
The Mini Me puppet master, marionette,
Freud’s das Es, the id sewn flesh to flesh,
my didactic homunculus self.
© 2009, Donald Harbour
Donald Harbour Poetry 
Donald, these lines at at the heart of the poem:
“The flickering images,
yours to interpret, to filter,
to massage into a lump of the thought
you desire, devour, project.”
Peace,
Geoffrey
LikeLike
“I’d sewn flesh to flesh…” Wonderful!
LikeLike
Wonderful poetry. It took me to places!
abstracting
LikeLike
You hale the lecturing self. Ah, creature comforts of staging behind the curtain.
LikeLike
This is great. I love the way you are playing with language here and riffing on the idea of this little man all the way through the piece. Good work. And tell your Mini Me good work as well, since he’s the real author. 🙂
LikeLike
I love where you went with this…these words did great
The heart and brain only apparatuses
to contain you, comfort you, feed you.
A masochistic misologistic person,
twisted, distorted by grappling
with your own contradictions.
LikeLike
Ah….sitting in an easy chair indeed, while your flesh and bones does all the work. 😉 Good take on the prompt. I like this.
Mutiny in Six Parts
LikeLike
Your command of language is impressive and illustrates the complexity of homunculus .One of the best homunculus poems so far. I would have preferred flicking the switches rather than flipping the switches…
I know I’m being a pedantic old pain!
LikeLike
These are my favorite lines:
A masochistic misologistic person,
infantile patriarchal spark with in.
The way you pair these adjectives together is so effective. Love the whole poem!
LikeLike
soooooooo good to read and how you used the words
LikeLike
I must admit–‘mini me’ gave me quite a chuckle! I can just picture your little man perched on top of your computer…pulling those strings.
good read.
LikeLike
Excellent. I love the sound of “infantile patriarchal spark.” This really gets to the sense of the homunculus exactly.
LikeLike