When the faded black ink stamped across the rotten wood,

pulled across endless symphonies and clockwork thoughts,

and strove to find it’s own voice,

the lockbox was thrown open.

 

Keys clanged against schoolhouse-rock jail cells and

Dean Martin’s voice rippled again and again

Enticing all to sway in effervescent champagne flutes

and cocktail cumberbunds.

Words beat trumpeting melodies of times long gone

-Fragile, faded, and foxed along the edges-

against cherry wood heels and sea shell bricks,

Until a thousand broken hourglasses were all that remained.

 

Ashen irises performed glissades on frozen cad’s hearts and

Spoke sweet chilipepper burns against the skin,

living deeply and sucking the marrow of life

So that ephemerality was the only constant in the

Bamboo-laden steps that wind around fingers in tangles.

Lips lined with the androconium pull fate’s together

and meld them with kintsugi until the glistening gold

turns into silver pennies raining from the sky.

The cling on azurite meteorites that pummel and burn

Away the sins of yesteryear while foxgloves

and ladies slippers are the psalms

Written in cursive on rosary bead lined palms.

 

Concrete rubble coats empty skeleton streets

In perverse dust of burnt sienna and caramel.

Gumdrops are rotting from the inside out, sugar laden with

Heroin and smiling faces promising redemption

From the mass exodus of societal minds.

Born of dust and ashes, phoenix cries

Scar the everbearing night with flashes of

Blue-green lightning and alarm-clock boxes.

Pushing and shoving, 50 stars line across 13 gashes

in a void no longer able to be filled,

These computational creations that cocoon all around

Until there’s nothing left but a gelatinous mess

Of “what-if”s and “what-will-be”s

Torn open at the seams so that nothing can grow again.

 

Seeds planted in desperation to grow

Infertile lands now coated with soil of the

Dirty minds that once proliferated, go dry.

Rotting cracks fall down memory lanes and

Sweet-plum roof tiles line old cobble street corners

Where darkness abounds on bitter-sweet chocolate lovers

And midnight-drawn vanilla kisses.

 

The stench of rotting flowers clings like desperate

Phantasms of nights long past

and whiskey stains on the carpet don’t hide the

Ouija-board melodies that blare from the old stereo.

Que sera sera never sounded so much better,

Than when vicariously placed vials are pleading

For forgiveness of sins not yet committed.

Chances are that panaceas won’t be so prolific

when poisons are subtly hidden in beige walled rooms

and adoration of long dead poets

Who scribble nonsense on papers that mean nothing

But textbook answers and thoughts that are nothing more

Than what the herd says is bad.

 

The shots that fire rubber coated dreams

glaze the brazen hoops holding cicada summers

And powdered-sugar coated pinecones

With the realization that childhood is but an everlasting tango

Of innocence and maturation. It leads down winding rivulet roads,

Criss-crosses with all the paths not taken

And a wise man takes the road less traveled by.