Probably 6:45?

Busy, busy, busy. So much to do, so little time. Yanked in every direction by the passing threads and hands of everything and everyone who’d simply like to reach out. Many thoughts and many feelings fly about in my head, rushing one way or another, always making sure their near misses are just close enough to give me a heart attack. I do hope you enjoy the poem today. What a wonderful day it is.


Sinisterium

How the bell tolls

Sounding at the hour

Not to mark the time

But something much more dour

That taste in your mouth

Errant vicissitude

Turn from sweet to sour

Ashes then and ashes now

Ring around the Rosie

And we all fall down

A cacophony of sirens

Binding men in liar’s irons

See there so hidden in the fog

There the pyres, there the pylons

Sinister in their construction

Obscure in their function

Can you hear them shrieking?

Can you hear their desperation?

Mark the date

For your infernal consultation

I set the scene

You play the part

Watch right there

Shadows in the dark

Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall In Love

Consider it, my friends. To be in Paris in the 1920s, to escape and find that magic! To take it and bring it back to the present to find yourself and everything you’ve ever dreamed of. Take that magic and that majesty you found in the past and apply it to the world at large. Oh, to be in a wonderful world of wizards and sorcerers, casting their magics on pages and canvases and the keys of pianos. What a wonderful world it will be, filled with art and song.


Carnival Comes to Paris

There’s flying and there’s dying

Both ending on the ground

Hearing that one final sound

Make refuge there, in burial mound

A man in a three-piece suit

Playing the piano

Can’t help but fall in love

Fly away, little dove

All affairs fair at the fair, long as you can pay the fare

Car broke down

Grab the spare

It’s a long way back to town

One day soon we’ll be back home

One day soon I’ll read that tome

Evil little lexicon

Stare me down, thereupon

Sitting on the shelf

Bore your holes

Whack those moles

Cross the bridge and pay the tolls

Find yourself and find our souls

Never Alone In The Woods

I often hike alone. I find peace there in the trees and with the animals. I like to think they find peace in my presence as well. The same peace I feel in your presence, of course. It is nice to hike with people you love, animals you love. You will always find something new on the trail. Even the same trail isn’t the same twice. You just have to look. Same goes for people. If you’re making generalizations, if you’re not really looking, not really seeing… You’ll never reach those depths of understanding that may one day lead you to Elysium, home of the heroes and the Gods. Or perhaps just to somewhere you might be happy.


Peaks and Valleys

Tending to a violet color

Regal purple, never duller

Shine so bright, as a star

Violescent, never far

How many miles can you go?

And still be here beside me, no?

My heart’s cascade, a thousand peaks

Trek through my rivers and all my creeks

Not so hard, to survive

A bountiful harvest, my heart provides

Two hearts, one locus

You have always been my focus

Sit inside this heart of mine

Think not hard, but cross the line

Take this linking as a sign

Always back, and always mine

Dreaming of Italy, But I Don’t Speak Italian

In your dreams you can be anyone, be anything, do anything, go wherever you want. Why then, in my dreams, am I me? Why then, in my dreams, am I me and I am with you? Not to Italy, not to Spain, but trees and parks in Cincinnati. A place of hills and dreams tucked so neatly into the cusp of the Ohio river. My heart is here and so far away. Perhaps I’ll even find it again.


A Rose By Any Other Name

Decidedly pithy

Not such a pity

Two houses

You and I

In fair Cincinnati

Alike in serendipity

Find yourself a part

An actor, an actress

We’re putting on a play

You’ve been cast

In iron

Unmoving

Fettered by nature

Much like a bronze bust

Perfection in antiquity

Opposite me

If you only you could see

The part you have to play

Maybe then we’ll find our way

Two leads

Pro-consuls of that fallen republic

There abound the seeds

On a path we find oblique

Slanting at an angle

That makes it hard to speak

He Has Arrived.

Moving on up. Moving on out. Do what you will, perhaps what you must. Find the page, don’t make a fuss. The man, he comes, to do what he does. How will you respond? In all your despondent musings, never could you have fathomed his arrival. The depth of his presence… What could it mean?


The Man

Novocaine

Laughing gas

Numb the pain

Chuckle now, it’ll pass

Never feeling

Never reeling

From the onion, layers peeling

Never crying, always dealing

Put it inside

Stem the tide

Walking cadaver, formaldehyde

Eat your fill

Drink this swill

Take this pill

Corporate shill…

Once upon a time

There was a man from Nice

Quite the man he was, so very nice

And quite the fan of thyme

Corrupted he was

by demons abuzz

And now is his brain turned to mush