“‘Where Have All the Children Gone?’”

“‘Where Have All the Children Gone?’”

“Where have all the children gone?”
Wait. Hesitate, “What’s a Luddite suppos’d to do?”
If all our stars are realligned the few
Who register approval hear the song,
While all the rest are caught in endless sleep. If right and wrong
Depend on numbers and wisdom on its devotées, the serpent in the queue
Itself provides the answer to the Sphinx; what is never seen, the clue:
The roll call amongst the deaf exceeds the number of the living.The throng,
The mob, their bliss in congress feeds on givens more than present appetite demands

while someone pays the piper;
They always will, you know; it is the ancient promise of the latter day.

Did you believe
The King picks up the tab while you so freely lunched with your psychologist
And somehow missed the age-old sign upon the wall:

“Restricted”  The misanthropist
Waiting tables finds comfort in his tips; the cleric,

lips are his own private sniper.

Cell-phones in the square deter a tank or two,

but rarely seen are those who will succeed,
who sooner either disappear or die

while those who don’t are later forced to bleed.

“Concessions”

Concessions, yes; hairy clouds and rains can comfort hearts
Within the sheltered warmth

and welcome of my own bed.
I imagine angels on the pillow

where I lay my head,
And when I pray I am at Temple,

nightly sanctuary of the arts
Within my head as when I read or hear

within tales and fables
Running rampant through that vapid place

where hues and sounds abound
But are not seen or heard; choirs in the void,

not a hint of laughter round
The workman’s bench, the manicured down

of gardens or at the table.
Yes! One day’s maintains bear no obvious hint of perseverance,
No consolation for the years,

no respite from the constant consequence
Of experience in real fears. Vision simply comes to me,

enabled,
Ready made. Who I am to speak?

With whom am I that am alone? I ignore
The whole vicarious mirage as I lay here but for a superficial middling time,

And here with me is what never is

and nothing more.

“Oh, I know”

Oh, I know it”s been said before but bears repeating:
Unless a man embrace estates, his sense
Of eternity, his gifts of endless strife and goals of regret intense
Enough to merit periodic casual to shameless open weeping
In the corridors; unless the deadly abyss of every night’s sleeping’s
Prone to breach and rupture within his dreams or by the clock;
unless ‘neath the lens,
His page is thus combustible by the light focused upon a spot,
his joy depends
On something well beyond his own heart’s contumely,
his gates–his paradise, his weeping–
Fall well beyond the storehouse of his eyes and its catalogue of fears,
His light is changed to fire in tragedy and myths of talismans that guide his way.
Again, unless all this is welcomed well before the final hour, his pride will swell,
His vanity implode, and circumstance becomes
a euphemism for all he sees as hell.
Remember please that breath and breathing signify that death is ever near
And in these final years, satisfaction’s just another word for nothing left to pay.

“Occam’s Rasor”

Occam’s rasor, perhaps, but what else is there
Between the stepping stones, the zeniths, the nadirs,
Putting aside the in-betweens, the shafts of spears,
The road less taken, that one trampled, the toxic air,
The steps that lead in either direction, the fare
Compared to destination, dreams that disappear.
Sooner or later, choice replaces every truth, the fears
That come when hybris meets hamartia? Tares
And thistles abound, the rent, the ashes, the cardinal numbers
Spread themselves among the ordinals and seem to sin no more.
Even so? What of these, the inevitable, the inescapable nemesis?
Step forward and discover the reason for the second step; the emphasis Is on the first? The second? A third? Awake, the final unction’s found in slumber; Asleep, the hours promise the penultimate hour, remembrances of the final door.