Never Land Part 4
A sodden dreg with wooden leg is dancing for a dime,
to sacred psalms and other balms, all ticking with the time.
He’s 22, he’s almost through, he’s melted in his prime,
his bane is firm, the canker worm dissolves his brain to slime.
With slanted scales and twisted jails, his life’s his only crime.
The eyes behind the head inclined reflect a universe
Of shanty towns and kings in crowns and parties in a hearse,
Of heaping mounds of coffee grounds and pennies in a purse,
Of heart attacks in shoddy shacks, of motion in reverse,
Of reasons why pale kids must die, quite trite and curtly terse,
Of puppet people at the steeple, kneeling down averse,
Of tinkle tones and megaphones with empty words and worse,
Of life’s begin’ in utter sin and other things perverse,
Of lewd taboos and residues contained within the Curse,
While poets blind, in gallows’ rind, carve epitaphs in verse.
Bob walks the streets and begs for eats or little jobs for trying
“The answer’s no, you ought to know, no use for you applying,
and don’t be sad, it aint that bad, it’s soon your time for dying.”
The air is thick, his baby’s sick, the cries are multiplying.
The beggar clump beside the dump has pencil box in hand.
With sightless eyes upon the skies he’s lying there unmanned,
with no relief and bitter grief too dark to understand.
The backyard blight is hid from sight, it’s covered up and bland,
and Robin Hood and Brother Hood lie buried in the sand.
While all night queens carve figurines in gelatine and jade,
behind a door and on the floor a deal is finally made;
the painted girl with flaxen curl has plied again her trade
and now the care within her stare has turned a darker shade.
Her lack of guile and parting smile are cutting like a blade.
Some boys with cheek play hide and seek within a house condemned,
their faces gaunt reflecting want that’s hard to comprehend.
With veiled excuse an old recluse is waiting to descend.
His eye despair above the stairs, he’s never had a friend
to talk about his hidden doubt of how his world will end -
to die unknown, forlorn, alone? No use a farewell penned!
And soon the boys chase phantom joys and, presto when they’re gone,
the old recluse, with nimble noose and facial features wan,
no longer waits upon the Fates but yawns his final yawn
(like Tinker Bell, he spins a spell, in fairy dust chiffon).
With twisted brow, he’s tranquil now, he’s floating like a swan
and as he fades from life’s charades, the night awaits the dawn.
A boomerang with ebon fang is soaring through the air
to pierce and breach the heart of each and then is called despair.
And as it grows it will oppose and fester everywhere.
And yet the crop that’s at the top will still be unaware.
Continued
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