Flavour is bought, taste acquired;
moments unfold without register,
awaiting a judgment rendered,
manufactured for intended reactions.
Long dark locks flow from a petite statuette;
her vibrant smile absolves me of my failings,
as man and beast.
Her obsessively modest appearance,
hidden behind thunderous girlish giggles,
tempts the beast to capture, to devour,
and never release its enraptured hold.
Struggling...no voice...no strength...drained...
going through the motions...
passing time...passing presence...burning absence...
repetition...reiteration...ampersand....movement unsure...
passing....burning extinguished;
massive crush followed by a stupendous disappointment:
the rumour of love and longing linger on the lips of a jilted lover,
forever unrequited.
Dashed dreams are left in a wreckage heap some place behind appearance,
and beyond imagination -
inside and outside;
love unrequited is sustained by hopeful teary eyes turned to another day,
recollected forever.
They strive to merge the margin with the core,
to leave the periphery annihilated,
fused to the absolute.
The corpulent, unshaven fool scribbles away,
trying to exorcise ancient demons,
and conjure novel hauntings.
Beginnings grope into the dark for adversity;
for the chance to end, to halt, and start again.
Beginnings are most difficult for the old dog,
unable to learn and unwilling to the turn the new trick;
he sees the portent of something great,
yet it remains agonizingly beyond his grasp,
she slips from his embrace,
she pushes him away,
she chooses another,
and brings with her
Fortuna's cruel whim;
and he, he is left in solitude,
left alone with blackened lips
dripped with abysmal longing.
Ah, the transient poet sighs,
I'm outmoded,
I'm outdated,
I'm walking antiquity,
with eyes set upon a distant destiny,
doomed to repeat onto infinity.
The prophet-poet recovers
and reiterates lost wisdom,
pronouncing it to deaf ears,
and slips back into oblivion.
