Slipping off the costume once again,
you become a sweet creature of dreams.
The common body, buried beneath
a flimsy gauze of naught, is shared with
no one save the Devil.
Slipping off the costume once again,
you become a hellion of horrors.
What is revealed?
The darkest parts that have no shame.
What is concealed?
The golden parts that have no aim.
Pumpkin face,
sewn into my smile,
must we part
by new moon,
or can we begin again
under sun’s cover?
Drowsy pigeons peck at puddles of crumbs as
emaciated ravens console wavering widows.
Cadavers flown home on thrones of hushed
bones dream of nothing new, evermore.
Courage, like early morning walks, is a
habit which should be practiced often if
it is to become a song that the soul can
sing in its sleep.
Process precedes perfection; every step is
a standard. Hibernation in summer’s spout
oppresses the spirit if an inner torch still
burns.
Hawk eyes survey a cobbled square, teeming with tamed shadows.
Café noir in manicured hands, harsh rays from a cumbersome sun
fall upon her cobra-skinned boots. She shields indigo eyelids with
bejeweled twigs, blocking out far-off orchards with all her might.
Expectant limbs howl out her name; their sickly offspring are her
birthmark. Invisible to the passing eye, they have marked her for
life.
Flickering in futility, eye light vanishes at last.
Lubricant long gone from musket’s length,
horror after horror has turned muscular men
into bawling boys.
Carmine comets, too numerous to count, rain
downwards until no consoling bullets remain.
An involuntary babysitter, bereft of his blanket,
tends a makeshift graveyard until buttress’ come.
A crimson tinted mouth smudges
comrade glasses beneath a buzz of
walking suits. They talk only amongst
themselves, never to her.
Glittering gown masks avian limbs, a
former gazelle turned silent sidekick.
She is hopeless in her new-found role
and recites alphabetic antiphons, reaping
no harvest beside such diseased plantings,
yet brightly standing still, she will.
Decay of the visible is difficult enough but the
assassination of the unseen is a far greater crime.
Amazing transformations are taking place every day and
already, we have lost precious and valuable slivers of
energy that could have been used in an
alternate life. The disintegration of our histories is a
puzzle that we may never be able to solve.
Symbolic objects pass through weathered hands, forever
edited for meaning by time’s ever-changing whims.
Advertisements plastered on your front door (again). An
animal—possibly a cat or a female child—howls from outside; your
bonus for residing in a drab and dilapidated district.
Conifer trees lined up in rows like luckless soldiers wait for collection. Which
gene programmed you for this existence? In the
inglenook a solitary Christmas card is taped to the wall…a
shot of humanity from an old high school friend.
Spaghetti for dinner (again).
Oh, never drink to garnish joy
for joy’s enough,
but sorrow’s glass may be employed
when seas get rough.
sundry folly 