The magic lantern, like Plato's cave
Should comfort us from here to grave
Illusions tempt but serve to save
Us all from small tedium
The little deaths that make up life
'tween buoyancy and mindless strife
Let balance there be our midwife
And rescue lies aborning
Breathe deeply in, the chance of mirth
At ev'ry chance from here to birth
The only measure of life's worth
Is pleasure gained from honest laughter dawning
For life's a heavy weight to bear
And we should not the mantle wear
Like it's a cloak of camel's hair
Thru the desert of life's making
When oasis waits upon the verge
If we but let our senses merge
Resisting mightily the urge
To wallow there in grieving
When courage is what takes the day
While life's embattled forces play
The lightness out in bitter fray
Shall not the victor be upon death's requiem
(for unfulfilled dreams)
What could have been,
was never shown.
And leaps of faith,
were never known.
What came next,
was never owned.
Most withered in failure,
some had never grown.
But as dreams come through,
they still wander unseen.
Lost in a fog,
in a forest of weeds.
Next steps will guide them,
should all belief abound.
And will grow those dreams mighty,
in more fertile ground.
Sitting in a place of solitude has become multiple locations as my mind needs to feel peace.
Only one person has helped me regain my peace.
Each time we speak, even if it is brief, I feel a sense of peace.
The angel that has helped me regain my self
The angel that has helped me realize who I am
The angel that believes in me
I only ask that she be the one I need.
A guiding force at my side to the requiem of my mind and survival.
was less in the folds
violins, please
you will find me in fields
of imaginary beauty
and this adagio
is reaching
it's crescendo
Please take me home
to where the pink flowers grow;
brush my cheek
and inspire mortal desires.
Cast the dark away
allow a light's afterglow
to meld my spirit back,
to life's eternal fire.
Yes, please carry me home,
to where the Pink Flowers grow.
I saw upon that shatter’d looking glass
A fragment of myself,
Where Cleopatra wept upon
Her spectred bridegroom.
Tears of ivory flow’d forth unto
Her mount’d breasts,
As her tender lips mutter’d
Upon their mortality:
‘Mortalis nemo est quam non attingit dolor’.
Only when we have felt, even once,
the clawed caress of strife,
do we value the soft warm hand
of peaceful days in our life.
Give me boredom and humdrum
over adventure and interesting times;
a quiet corner in a calm house
to write and edit my rhymes.
Oh, war has driven the pen stroke
and sorrow versed in the bomb strike,
but I’d rather read all about it
in a book and only imagine what it’s like,
than breathe the smoke of burning -
the death scent of a home.
I do not need to personally bleed
to scratch out a war-time poem.
Better to write of cows and apples,
than Flanders field and poppies;
to write of a Luve like a red, red rose,
than a requiem for the Croppies;
and though the poet much values his words
I’ll bet that each war-torn bard
would’ve chosen to write first hand in the soft
than ink pain in the trench of the hard.
Mozart had a canary that would sing to him
which he loved.
He also had a wise old starling.
When close to death
he asked Constanza to take the canary away
for the high notes of the bird now hurt his ears.
He commenced to compose his requiem
though he had to die before its completion.
The starling could have helped to compose
the requiems ending, yet it kept silent.
Unlike the Canary, it had not forgotten
that birds are the decedents of dinosaurs,
that extinction
will always be the last song.
Classical music cleanse my soul
For thy sweet melody is purest soul of artism
The mood of requiem is of sweet heaven serenade
It roams my mind , echoes in my ears to forever remain in my heart
The vocals are of angelic melodies
Soothing strained nerves of my heart and mind
Thy shake the blood under my skin
An awakening of true mastery of artism
Spewed by the stream of talented melodious voices and instruments
A “For Sale” sign
stands out front
where once a parish
notice board stood
for a hundred years.
Inside, the pews are gone.
A stark, stripped back space
echoes an absence
occupied now by only wisps
of dust drifting through a shaft
of sunlight, a buzzing blowfly
and a spiders web spun
across a window
as if strung to snare
the frayed wings
of the last
escaping prayer.
ANGIE, that last slow dance in smoky haze—
you slipped UNDER MY THUMB like twilight’s ache.
The Rolling Stones crooned fate through tangled days;
I tried to PAINT IT BLACK for mercy’s sake.
But YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT—truth stings—
just loaded TUMBLIN DICE in neon towns,
chasing HONKY TONK WOMEN on borrowed wings
while WILD HORSES dragged dreams to thorny grounds.
O RUBY TUESDAY, ghost in sequin sheen,
your laugh a roulette wheel’s bright, spinning sound.
The jukebox plays what might-have-been,
where every win was loss, and lost was found.
Stones still roll… but honey, in the end,
the house takes all. Even diamonds bend.
There was a young man named Fred
(the tooth fairy lived in dread)
a wild flamboyant from afar
the spice island Zanzibar
a singer he'd been
and sang a good song
with four-octave range
in the band called Queen
tho' considered 'strange'
with plus four in the upper jaw
he had more teeth than most
once nicely depraved
now dead and gone
when he gave up the ghost
shuffled offstage his mortal coil
was no more than toast
finally went bust
of him it was said,
'Another one bites the crust!'
A warm sun rises
As Cardinals bow their heads
Hope springs eternal
Heartthrob in damsel drag
Belief of human bile
Completely instilling cascading dregs of mechanical flesh, bones and spit
64th avenue
And coiling deft doom
Winged balls of bulging blood and speckled steel
Merry wails and flutters of moths unsealed
Fitted upon falling kneel
And reckoned release of rotten roadkill-
Rats and babes and brats
Congealed candy and sickeningly sweet brandy
And hailed light of epiphany to choke, swallow and spit
And strangle without a hand nor handle but grit
Of groil and crevices of menaces heralding honed notes
And a lone liver in fathered infirmary
Black backed in breachers
Potted a bulge to indulge the fickle maggots of dissociation
Emulsification and hearty sniff of
Whitened slice and slithers of snow
Dregs to drag and hone and throw
Up upon bedded saline laden road
Of rows and rows and pounds
That drag rotten flesh afresh from the hound
Sutured from spine to fluttered wing
The hide
Plucked apart from rat to brat
And collared collier stepped afresh with new hide and throw
And stubborn stubbled child with a new mind in tow
5//5//2025
Long have I slept
Its time to wake
Words not kept
And I've been very late
Tedious was my slumber
And empty my heart
Over lost hopes I ponder
Am I too late for a new start?
As my nerves come back to life
I feel in my heart this knife
Its sinking all the time
What has been my crime?
How have I been?
Left so far behind
I did nothing all this time
That was worthwhile
Maybe that has brought me
To the precipice of my revile
No longer my eyes
Have that sheen
I'm not half the man
I could have been
How long do I struggle?
With the same fight?
Have to wake up now
And change my plight
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