Abstract Gas

This image means something to me
different than it might mean to you
-- depends on where you find yourself
in life or what you ate for lunch or dinner.

Are we whirling off into space, free and
joyous, or instead, steeped in deep dudgeon
-- a word worthy of Alcott or Walter Scott!
Reminds us of dungeon: shackles bolted

to a slimy, weep-green wall; what's your choice
-- the rack, the thumbscrew, or the iron maiden?

Christopher T. George