Put On a Happy Face
Put on a happy face
when I release taut fingers
from your pallid cheeks.
Promises and empty lies
are sported clichés
that spoil a silenced vocabulary.
A quieted understanding we've
vocally committed to;
barks a matted-jackal’s constitution -
perceiving morose consequences
of blind subservience.
Put on a happy face
and fetch me dinner.
Ever flickering nuances,
once ignited a Brigadooned morning sunrise -
where woolen-blackened comforters
backlit our sordid differences.
Now, our prom attire has been burned.
The carnations, the orchids - have perished.
The beguine hasn’t begun.
It has ended.
Finalized and fortunately forgotten.
A pale orchid-colored icepack,
for your left eye,
would match your handbag and shoes
quite nicely.
Put on a happy face
and lint-guard the
disheveled derelict.
Forever falling forward, we've suddenly landed.
No need for saline solution anymore;
I cry when I hap hazardously laugh.
A silenced vocabulary realized the words
tryst and trust was separated by one letter;
why or you…or me, for that matter
completes the unfinished symphony.
The disenchanted beguine
floats into a tear-filled
Cinderella dank nightfall –
as I stare into the cornea of a
brittled pink carnation.
My hand, like a fringed strop,
needs to remove the strains of
a “Mea-Culpa” leitmotif and flog
the iniquities of one’s self.
Put on a happy face, goddamnit
and tell me
why you’re gone!
Toasted marshmallows is a perfume
created for misguided Girls Scouts.
Fervent mongrels who refrain from selling
photo-pressed carnations and
poisonous orchids - dumbly courtsey
when idiotic
adolescent daydreams prevail upon
the blatantly obvious.
Thirteen stitches
and a numerous array
of callous welts
reprised our endless beguine.
Passion is said to perish in embers.
One last charcoal
for us
to eye and envy.
A burnt carnation.
A scarred, trembling orchid.
The smoldering remains we'll inhale -
when this lost and lonely
soldier removes the
smudged greasepaint from
his broken fingertips and eyelashes
to painfully and pitifully
put on a happy face
just for you.
Copyright © John Heck | Year Posted 2011
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