Leave a Love Canal

Part I.  As the Candles Melt…
 
Four leaf clovers misspent
On nets cast
Fishing for fugu,
But not just
More bones to mass the midden.
A carefully crafted meal
For romantics dining
Expecting a grim guest
Intruding during a delectable entrée,
Though such welcome intrusions
Never arrive when needed.
Perhaps even unwanted in hindsight,
The menu is meant to tempt
A defense against optimism
Delivered by silver shoed shadows
Running invisible through the night
Baited by the prospect of pessimism
Seizing the board;
Othello played so masterfully
It’s worth a candle
Melted from any end.
 
After eating she asks,
“Have we played tonight?”
And he can only reply
According to cues
Signaled by a roulette wheel –
22 black – No turning back;
Rude in speech
Unblessed by soft phrases of peace,
“If you have, it wasn’t with me.”
Yet hardly a heart
Subdued by the tempest
She prays for the calm following
The winds which waken death
Even while plotting to mend
By making a positive
Multiplying negatives.
And no doubt tomorrow
Her sin will be his
Until back and forth
The two spew enough caustics
To leave a Love Canal.
 
Part II.  … Facets Come to Light…
 
Dead roses tossed away
Though scars remain to remind
The thorns bit
Right after beauty
Hooked a star gazer.
Looking away risked tearing
The eyes wide open,
Though staring at the sun
Chances similar blindness.
Yet, with no other choices,
Carry on
Burning out the ability to see
Cracks in Pygmalion’s masterpiece.
Ruinous only to daydreams
Too fragile to accommodate facts;
The truth as delicate as Weiwei
With an ancient urn,
Leading to the tragedy of a glass goblin
Shattered by melodies unheard.
Those sweeter symphonies
The band plays regardless
Of ears hearing hints
Sounding like sonar
Revealing what lies ahead,
Beneath, and in-between.
 
The end at the beginning
Shrouded in rosy distortions,
Especially in a funhouse.
Mirrors making the odd so common
It seems to suggest nothing
So banner headlines are printed
Echoing Henning’s prediction:
“Love defeats All,”
As if guaranteed by the press
Forecasting winter’s end
Instead of impending frost,
And though through snows
A second love may follow
After cruel Cupid, sated by tears,
Extinguishes an inflamed past
The aftermath still salts
A region, but not the whole.
 
Part III.  … In Her Eyes.
 
Her blood already wine
No need to waste time
On transubstantiation –
The alchemy of churches,
A promising lie
For the miracle began
With wine already in the cruet,
While she simply flows
Gushing from a sleeve
Adorned by a heart
Wondering why
Her simple is abstracted
By eyes licking her body
Sculpting clay
Into what devotees pray
Will fill the void
In their lives,
Never minding hers;
Pilgrims crusading
To cross a canyon
Wide as outer space
Then act proud of mistaking
A road of bones
Headed to nowhere
For the path to paradise,
And each new interaction
The past rhyming
Confining her to fantasy;
Screaming in a box
Wondering when she’ll be seen.
So sometimes any hand pleases
Turning the crank
Until out she pops
Quick kisses then gone,
Though occasionally lingering.
 
One on one, but still outnumbered
Binding with barbed wire
To one another’s delights;
They fight tooth and nail
In dialogues of comforting tribulation
Turning hearts purple
Thanks to bruises so deep
It hurts to beat.
But biology demands
Even abnormal rhythms
Maintain EKG rudiments –
Tachycardic flam dragons,
Or a steady pataflafla –
Slaves to the rhythm of amour,
They keep the illusion alive:
True love can be found
Where it doesn’t exist.
 
Pondering that sunsets are different
Wherever you go
Pen scratching sparks
To light a fire
She fills notebooks,
Journaling of these times together,
A walk down memory lane
To remember lessons from a cactus
On how to survive in the desert.
Always warning herself
In the absence of repeated stings
Calluses thin
Until that bullet proof armor
Is just a pleasing memory
More delusion than protection
When lead encounters cardboard.