Monochrome

Cold misty dawning
Paper circle sun
White upon a field of grey
Dare I call it day

Songs from Princess Eloise - Embers

Watch it all burn
Watch it burn down
The line that leads to the crown

Burning our names - let them die
Then like the Phoenix we fly
Embers adrift in the sky


Watching it burn
Watching it fall
Burn down the throne - crown and all


Prince and Princess you and I
Away to the forest we fly
Free as the birds in the sky

See the sky
How it glows
Smell the smoke
On our clothes

follows 'Rapture' ... find the rest of Princess Eloise at www.tinyurl.com/prinel

Weasel Origins

He is a Weasel - methinks
That thankless eats and thankless drinks
And excuses ingratitude
By recourse to a platitude

The Weasel and all his adherents
Deny that gifts come from parents
Eschewing a primary cause
As if they believe in Santa Claus

When you challenge their world view
They will then imply that you
Possess deficient erudition
Have not sufficient education
To accept the explanation ...
Reindeer in the fifth dimension!

As Santa comes and Santa goes
All his clothes and Rudolph's nose
Travel near the speed of light
Red-shifted glowing in the night

All the Weasel's theories
Are very similar to these
Happy in his self-made home
He wishes to be left alone

The Weasel says his life is joy
That thanklessness great freedom brings
But I think any normal boy
Wants his Dad to give him things

Monoculists

Manufacturers of binoculars
Are a curious race
Their wares are almost exclusively
Made for a narrow face

An interocular distance
Exceeding 74
Millimetres may be rare
But who can know for sure

How many neglected customers
Would purchase wider opticals
From avant-garde manufacturers
We're people too - not gargoyles!

God gave us two good eyes like you
But your casual prejudice
Turns many a stereophile into
A frustrated monoculist

Compensating for his lack
With an enormous telescope
You could win our business back
Surely not too much to hope ...

Princess Eloise - Prologue

Don't we all want Romance?
The Bard stood up and said
Don't we all want suspense
Right until the Hero's wed?

Don't we all want elegance
Don't we all want cheer
Don't we all want villainy?
I have it all right here

Request the tale of Eloise
And you shall have it all
He stood back in the ancient Inn
And waited for the coins to fall

When his hat upon the floor
Contained a meager wage
He stepped forth once again
And - with a flourish - turned the page ...

Blank Again

Our Universe is finite both in space and time
As is the English language regarding what will rhyme
Faced with such a boundary
Bound with such a curse
Some write skillful poetry
Others write blank verse

When the muse is on me
Striving for perfection
Sometimes it all unravels
Then comes the frustration ... frustration ... the fog is descending ... black ... choking ... I lose my way in the labyrinth of my own sad devising ... casting out breadcrumbs ... dispensing a guiding thread - it burns in my wake and guides me not to safety but calls the Minotaur to me ... I hear him approaching ... no ... no

Anequalia

My velvet-curtained retina
The anechoic chamber of my soul
That ponders not the meaning of blue
That feels not what it is to be you
That struggles with issues of self-identity
The concept of I and the meaning of me
A pool without ripple
It swallows the being
Of what is thrown in - without feeling
Could this be how I am feeling?
No - the words ran away with me
Honestly

Solitary

Birds

Awake before dawn
To greet the sun
Answerable to no one
Fluttering where they will
Feeding in flight until
Babies are chirping at parents returning
Soon they fly to Africa
To nest on another prison wall
The sky is silent in the fall

Mouse

Runs in the walls
As if they were halls
And corridors to cells
Sniffs and twitches and smells
He visits me in the night
Shyness is not fright
The cautious may live as they please
Free as a breeze
That blows wherever it might

Sky

No man may see more than half of the sky
The earth obstructing his eye
Through my window a glimpse
Of stars between bars
Sometimes the moon and I cry
For her light is fair
And the blue of a clear day is rare
Sun riding high in the sky

Bowl

What does my bowl bring
Hunger sweetens everything
Teaching me to be grateful
I put it on the windowsill
When the rain is from the West
Then I drink water from heaven
And that is always the best

Door

Steel with a hole
For an eye and a slot for my bowl
Incarcerating encapsulating
My adversary
That opens not for me
When I hear the key I fear
Who will visit with me
When they are gone I will be
Customarily solitary

The Commission

Make me that which need not skill
So that any fool may kill
Satan asked of his favourite son
And was presented with the gun

In a surfeit of delight
He commanded - let them fight
Without pause or intermission
Except to pass the ammunition

And they fought and fell and died
While mothers wept and children cried
And Satan laughed at what he'd done
And smiled upon his favourite son