Trifles

Feasibly, the system is based upon free will.
Makes me wonder about the choices made.
Did a dilemma ensue about what to do,
Triggering a departure and subsequent masquerade?
Perhaps there were obligations or aspirations to fulfill.
Then again, what if I decided to hide or flee?
I don’t know honey, maybe I’m like Bugs Bunny,
Got lost by taking a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

Running, now receding, until there’s no acrimony. 
Sometimes you come on like you have a monopoly.
What was wondrous and fun somehow became hit and run
With unambiguous meaning transmitted rather sloppily.
Here’s something to consider, an addition to my testimony:
I never thought there was debt between us to absolve.
Nor did I ever feel hate. For the most part, it was great,
Animated and revealing, an enthralling way to evolve.

Extrapolating on the premise of an interesting aberration;
What if we dream about what wants us instead of what we want?
Unable to pigeonhole unknown objectives of the soul,
Odds are pretty even between miscreant, nomad, and confidant.
Eyes open, over coffee, for a candid conversation?
Never happen. I’ll be brutally honest about this.
Truth, not charade, renders me far more afraid 
To venture anywhere nearer the assumed abyss.

Envision the magnitude of what we’d expect.
Nothing ever compares to its imagined counterpart.
Tending to the didactic, I’d definitely be anticlimactic,
Constructing theories on scaffolds only I can chart.
Realistically, thinking about this in retrospect,
There’s absolutely no way to prove anything.
It’s based on faith, ideals, and most of all, how it feels,
Harbored confidently by a steadfast heartstring.

Don’t forget the story of Mary and James.
Hollyhocks in front, peas and cabbage in the garden.
James tends the bull and Mary dyes the wool 
While the children wait for candies to harden
During a pleasant life in a cottage near the Thames.
Not even Rumples the cat can enliven the snore
Of quiet, little lives of complacent husbands and wives.
Everyone prefers to read about betrayal, passion, and gore.

Observe how it can be a bit more entertaining.
They live in a castle from which no one comes back.
Engaging nefarious desires beneath gothic spires
Where Mary’s a cannibal, James, a necrophiliac,
Enjoying ghoulish orgies that are mutually sustaining.
Absolutes are illusions. I don’t mean to be unkind.
I continue to believe because you continue to perceive
Random dreams and routine thoughts echoing in my mind.

Mind is totally blank—can’t think of a word.
I wonder if there’s anything in the fridge.
If I write one more verse because it rhymed well with curse,
I swear I’ll chuck the entire collection off a bridge.
Outside the window, an ominous mockingbird.
I wonder if that’s some sort of sign.
I have no fear. I think there’s some beer.
Shame there’s no tequila, but I’ll settle for wine.

Culmination

Never one to leave a puzzle unsolved,
She actually does know the reason.
It came in a dream and silenced her disquiet
Although it hardly makes a difference.
What’s done is done; every soul chooses its course.
And every soul must reconcile the consequences.
The secret resides in an indisputable passion,
The infinite ambition of grace.

Cornerstones

Needless to say, endings will never matter.
Something far more impervious endures.
Whether it’s heart, soul, or memories on parole,
In some other place, we are connoisseurs 
Of an attraction that makes all qualms scatter.
Witnessing the mystery insistently unwinding,
No one can steal what I believe and feel.
For me, the esoteric nature of it is spellbinding.

Enthusiastic bandit drawn to a woman’s shadow,
Shaking loose her hair on a cool desert night.
Stealing a kiss is where you went amiss.
Who cares what they say about hindsight?
Caught between a vindictive sultan and being a hero,
You debated whose interests you should defend.
I offer no reprimand for those nights in the sand.
Amorous impressions will always transcend.

Visiting his parents, a Roman soldier delights
In a new slave recently acquired from Gaul.
Mutual satisfaction restored that eternal attraction.
Exhilarated, servant and soldier soon went AWOL.
Propertius immortalized “O Best of All Nights.…”
A fortnight in a temple, visions of its white marble colonnade.
Substance of my dreams, sunlight filters through in beams.
Indelible images evoke delectable spectra of that escapade.

Exploitive barbarian raping his frail bride in the cloister of a church.
He married the maiden for resources and had to consummate.
Although bound by his trust, you were so nauseated by his lust,
You lied, and conveyed me home to your riverside estate.
I regained my health in your forests of birch
And introduced you to stories of Christ and the Book.
Ardor turned to glue in a meadow of violets with you.
To understand this affinity, know where to look.

Radical dissident in need of a place to hide
Brought to a melancholy widow’s mountain refuge.
Rushing in like a flood, you infiltrated my blood, 
Shattering the barriers of my sequestered subterfuge.
Torn between comfort and peace of mind, you tried.
“The Chance to Meet is Difficult.” Ask Li-Shang-yin.
Steady as a metronome, you forfeited your soul’s home,
Head set on political change, heart abandoned again.

Love whispers and honor readily succumbs
On a mission stipulating an unreasonable accord.
One dance with a fan and you were my man,
Secretly keeping me in defiance of your warlord.
The wine we consumed made from the finest plums,
Mornings near a brook beneath a willow.
I reveled in words; you excelled with swords.
Idyllic evenings when your heart was my pillow.

On the morning tide, a shipwrecked sailor.
The local shaman pronounced death wouldn’t take long.
A generous girl contributed an enchanting pearl.
From the Caroline Islands, “Love for a Stranger” or “Girl’s Song.”
Rejuvenation through magic is an inscrutable tailor.
When you sailed, you left half your heart behind.
And of my heart, you took the staunchest part,
Never suspecting how love’s sorcery would bind.

Subjected to a lifetime spent dying
Because you’d been born with a severed heart,
Gradually smothering from overprotective mothering,
When we met, your only outlet was in art.
My free-spirited teasing set that heart flying
Until our island paradise erupted in revolution.
They took you away, but I had to stay.
Under duress, we entered our previous dissolution.

Even though I’ve wondered about the way things are,
Questioning the implications of taking a breather,
I seek to learn, but I understand it’s not my turn.
On the other hand, it’s not your turn either.
Sorrow, like Morike’s “The Forsaken Girl” doesn’t fit my repertoire.
Cryptic wisdom surfaces and I reach for a pen.
Something within me glows because an unerring compass knows,
Somehow, we will meet again.

Epilogue

Petals light from the blossom to awaken the fruit.
Cycles of seasons: the ripening, the harvest, the withering,
Reabsorption by the earth, only to be reseeded.
Neither waking meditation nor dreaming mediation develops comfort.
Worldly circumstances cannot be rescinded.
Nevertheless, they detect each other consistently
Through evolution, permutation, and, undoubtedly, the evaporation of the Milky Way,
On their progression through the mockery of time.