Today I’m thankful for yearbooks
their value can never be oversold
Because the friends on the pages of our old yearbooks
like the memories we made back then
May age a little over time…
but they never will grow old
The mood lifts from the lips, parched with permanent nicotine,
and falls, like snowflake-ashes from a turbulent volcano.
The uninhabited eye, underneath the patch - a vacant stare
into a cloudless night with flamenco-stars. Further from the truth
comes the truth of perspective, perspicacity, the long draw
of his cigarette and slow sigh of ringlets. The Camel scent
of his clothing mixes with lavender and the draught of tears;
melancholy plugs up the dike. An occasional red fingernail,
as if down a chalkboard, his spine, taunts the old timer.
He grunts, and drains the erupting whiskey bottle. Thoughts
take wing…oft’ he hears her laughter, a bird call. Good eye
plucked from the bar, placed with the rest of the stars -
he doesn’t deserve the halo above his habitat, the floor.
Every day, life spins, like a merry-go-round, with no point.
He’ll never tell - the tale is decades gone and oversold.
5/7/2023
Anatomy of Melancholy
Sponsor: Craig Cornish
She wanted her man to be solid and gold
Not the king, who is told to be decrepit and old
Nor valiant swordsman brass and bold.
But compassionate hero who is not oversold
The king had his eye on this bonny maiden fair.
She had gorgeous hazel eyes and thick auburn hair.
She was careful not to catch his gaze, while in his lair.
She was after a man who knew how to love and care.
Just a man, mere and mortal, fair of face.
She knew of a terrific seeking place.
She told not her parents, for they might feel a disgrace
As this mystic sought her knight through portal of outer space
Her father distracted the royal eyes as she slipped out.
The guards did not see her ooze by, so there was no shout.
She ran to the portal, and asked for the best warrior they had.
They brought out a well-built soldier, a handsome lad.
She was magical enough to speak the language of gods.
He gave her clear go-ahead signals, and many approving nods.
They went away in the space ship, and had a marvelous life.
She made her hero a fantastically magical wife.
The tyranny of the majority,
democracy oversold
The power of the people to cut and paste,
fat cats in control
‘Oh Ye Of Little Faith’ we are,
like rats inside a maze
Our government serving to best itself,
entitlement ablaze
The curtain rises for one last act,
this play now eons old
As despots steal the final scene
—where freedom’s bought and sold
(St. David’s Pennsylvania: March, 2021)
This week Israel observes its New Year
A holiday which some cheer
While others find it quite severe
Who will live and who will die is decreed
To the drawn-out prayers, the devout take heed
This is New Year number 5780
By the Biblical system of dating
Though support for this calculation is fast fading
Moderns seem sure the world is billions of years old
Yet perhaps that claim's a bit oversold
From Noah's Ark, the Great Flood -- every event's
Been scientifically verified per the Old Testament
So, can we conclude with certainty we know
That Adam and Eve didn't live 5,780 years ago?
Charlie McKee against wise advice,
Went into Lucas Swamp cold as ice,
Told of savage beast that kills on sight,
Thought he was day’s true king and dark’s bold knight.
He held the Swamp’s risks were oversold,
But threat of dangers had been foretold,
He yielded to his gigantic ego,
And misjudged the Swamp’s vile entrapment pro.
There are eyes on you, a vile fiend,
Dark probing eyes of livid green,
O'er the jaws of a razor-sharp grin,
Pearly whites much like needle pins.
On windy nights, folk can hear howling,
From out of Lucas Swamp, loud growling,
Bloodcurdling screams fill their souls with fright,
Charlie went in the Swamp, but didn’t come out.
Standing among a crowd of silent souls,
treading over remains of lives once whole.
Peering at chiseled dates, stories untold,
vases with beautiful flowers to hold.
What had once felt warm now seems deathly cold,
all that was young has been deemed now the old.
Death has crossed Life's invisible threshold
and its breath this thief has brazenly stole.
Promises of latter years, would be gold,
now appear to be a bit oversold.
Leaving the once carefree and ever so bold,
to be froze in Decay's total control.
A thought has rooted and taken a hold,
on every man time will take a great toll.
11/19/18