Of Space and Time
by Michael Doyle

I sat back as the nurse checked my vitals
Thinking of all the drama queens and teen idols
Starting there, as I sincerely try to explain
All that I have seen, and to try to make it plain

Words and pictures I had fused into expression
Vagueness and specificity made their impression
Transforming time and words into artistic space
All of the moments spent left their lasting trace

Astral aliens are superior in their secret identity
Beautiful as they are in pages of comic book tapestry
It was a different time in what seems a different age
As story after story played out on the ragged page

Honed styles and thematic concepts in each edition
Offered us all a perceptive analysis of the human condition
Hip to the panels and meaningful balloons of dialogue
It was as if stereo was confined in a functional analog

It was storytelling that smoothly seemed to flow
Illustrations marking time with expressions that show
All those words really had no vivid way to say
What it was to make it through an artist's busy day

Astral aliens are superior in their secret identity
Beautiful as they are in pages of comic book tapestry
It was a different time in what seems a different age
As story after story played out on the ragged page

Whistling past yesterday's graveyard of passing memory
Life's storm clouds are felt through their familiarity
Mine too were micro-novels in vivid panels of cartoons
Those were pieced together in study hall before noon

Each in scrawled passages of colors and fine lines
Begging to be something that a life lived refines
Somewhere between almost real and feigned abstraction
Were stories etched out as a moment's distraction

Astral aliens are superior in their secret identity
Beautiful as they are in pages of comic book tapestry
It was a different time in what seems a different age
As story after story played out on the ragged page

(c) April 9, 2025   Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved