“A Brief Essay on the Death of Romance”

Trampling oyster shells on the floor,

Dueling with a windmill,

Dear Romance,

You died a homeless death

Before you were even born,

 

Love worn like an albatross,

Forms a bond like non-dairy creamer.

Dear Romance,

You were traded for vitriol,

Cast into the sacred river Alph.

 

Blake, Wordsworth, Keats, Coleridge, Byron & Shelley-

Is not a law firm or Wall Street trading company.

Dear Romance,

Just ask anyone! Well perhaps not a good idea.

Pallbearers all were they at your funeral.

 

Revel society in your hollow modernisms!

Soulless people, food and aps.

Dear Romance,

We sing "Auld Lang Syne" scarcely aware of Burns.

And tear-up not for the lost year but our lost selves.

 

Pity that your poetry doesn’t show up on Coke cans,

Or at the very least a Super Bowl ad.

Dear Romance,

When we stared into the abyss and you didn’t stare back,

Was when we knew that we were dead too.

“Can I Be a Cowboy?”

The fever of getting a parking space,

Watching insolent children misbehave,

Seeing the broken people strive to abide…

I have to believe in my heart and soul,

That being a cowboy was meant for me.

 

Oh to ride the open spaces,

Unbound to machine, or foreign places.

To see sky unlined by man’s devices,

Riding the range at an unmeasured pace.

Enjoying membership in the human race.

 

What is lost cannot be regained.

Sometimes it cannot even be remembered.

I remember, and it saddens me outright…

It is the reason we all like Clint Eastwood,

The reason that sunsets still trigger our heartstrings.

 

Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Tom Mix, and all the cowboy poets,

I salute you!

"Bad Elf"

So a Hobbit boards a ship in the Grey Havens...

The Elf-Captain notices…

 

“I am sorry dear Hobbit, even though you saved Middle Earth

From Sauron, you cannot go West…”

 

 

Middle Earth didn’t have a Constitution apparently, yet NO one

Reveling at the sign of the Prancing Pony could care less!

"The Quantum Clearing"

Walking the road, I noticed a tree in a yard-

Then I saw the vast forest beyond that scraggly statue.

The enveloping green mass had an unusual quality,

Behold! An apparent clearing-

Beamingly inundated with the virgin light of mourning.

 

I proceeded with my early tract,

Concerned that I had seem the unseen, and perplexed.

Then I blinked and knew.

This clearing was mine, made for me,

Eschewing the materiality of the known, for an unknown egress.

 

I rest my eyes now, confident that still sounds

From windless branches fill my consciousness with forgotten

Lullabies filled with empty promises and illusory dreams.

People die longing for nothing, why would life struggle anon?

Being discovers a way, even without course, reason, or helm of trust.

“Richard Parker”

Pushed.

Asked.

Excuses.

Avoided.

Make Up?

Lost.

Disappointed.

We all tend to do what we want to do.

Meet me in Church Sunday.

 

We are each of us a kernel of sand.

“The Adventure of the Big Hill”

Bandit was a good dog.

He was a morning patroller,

As many dogs are-

Notice them as you drive to work.

 

One early summer morning,

Bandit was tracking the scent of a cat

When suddenly a shadow scurried past his side,

The game was afoot!

 

Bandit gave chase, albeit he was no longer a pup.

He was deep in the woods near a wet weather spring.

The rustling braches ahead of him went uphill,

He knew where he was now, climbing the Big Hill.

 

The grey-streaked white/tan dog with the blue left eye

Now earnestly gives chase to the unknown racer on the Big Hill.

Bandit feels more alive now than when he lays at his food bowl-

He feigns interest when his Master offers evening platitudes.

 

Bandit tops the Big Hill and sees his opponent, a cat, a huge cat.

Bigger than any cat on a Meow Mix bag, a very LARGE cat.

“My adventure must now end, be it good, or be it bad,” thought Bandit.

He knew his match was standing before him, fatigued yet defiant.

 

Bandit knew no fear, and raised a practical paw and said-

“Be gone from this Big Hill and my domain, else I must kill you.”

The giant cat bared his fangs yet remained, staring curiously and said,

“I go this time challenger, the next time I may NOT!”

 

Both turn and amble down their opposite hill sides,

Bandit returns home to lie under his favorite bush.

When supper time comes, Bandit eats with a flourish.

He acknowledges his Master with a furtive glance, then a smile.

 

Bandit was a good dog.