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Free Verse
Icarus Iscariot
Wings to carry you
beyond
Through vapors of departed souls
Floating graveyards of skeletal rainbows
Resin of melting wax forests
Seeping and pooling in the underworld
Needle and thread
your way
Among quilted stone and steel metropolis
Silver coins spiral
Catch fire
Incinerate the pavement
Down to the pier and
up the coast
Your nose twitches
Odor of sludge bogs, oranges and memories
Your eyes beg not look down
The landscape blurs
as you rush on
Polar ice caps
Ozone nexus on the horizon
Portal to celestial possibilities
The Prince
Blue well-worn
garbage fur coats
Huddled, ringed
Rivulet red snow
Crunch of numb rags
Fiery wisps in the infinite frost
Dense cold
Restlessness
Delirium
Across the channel
City glow
Fireworks of the praetorian
Diamond glint ambition
Calculating whores
Frigid flows of the unwelcome
Trodden upon
Granite souls
Heroes lost in the torrents
Scattered by the waves
Weary and displaced
Echoes from a dream
An iron wolf howling like a thousand wolves
Golden ribbon
Through the sky
Whispers of the prophet
Known but to the Prince among men
Flood Plain
Cemetery
Whitewashed
mausoleums
and plebian stones,
Alligators guard the way.
Granite slabs and a sleeping bag
Newspaper clothes with a swollen face.
Moss worn, crumbling names
Beneath marble, iron gates.
Raven twilight above delicate flowers
And a drifter lashed by whiskey chains.
The Great Quest
Berbers scrape the
mountains for it
Bedouins sift the sand for it
Beggars and bankers offer their lives as collateral
Hoping luck will guide them
and fate will oblige them in their quest.
Some come alone, cap and cane, down the southern pilgrim trails
Others with great retinues, pack animals, and gilded robes
Small crews in ornamental boats blessed by the village
Grip the coast and make their way
Steamships, for Queen and country, subdue the waves and cross
oceans.
Few know where to look.
Guided by lies, legends, and worm-eaten manuscript
Small fortune and soul traded for hearsay or crude map
Spurred on by glory and wealth,
Reassured by oracles, soothsayers, and shamans.
Extinguished life force and bone
the milestones for so many a journey
Twisted metal and empty tents
the visited shrines for those soon to follow.
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