A Requiem for Chivalry

Escape from travel

A French fountain gushing mountain water in an ancient city square

You’d think you’d find love not far from here

But you’d be surprised to find, I tell you, it is very lonely there

Just the pigeons pecking at the trash at my feet

No long-locked, long-legged, long-eyelash, freckled girl for me to meet

They say destiny, picks her winners and her losers before they breathe their first

Yet, I know I was never was guaranteed this life of mine here on earth

Alone at a fountain, where an old woman litters in her own city

Alone, and far away from anyone who will give a damn or pity

So I’ll stroll in the woods and hike in the hills

Far away from the stone-cold eyes

Too afraid to live and too young to die

Nevermore to realize

Their thread in the grand plot

Stricken conformity shaping one mass, gray lot

Paying homage to my muse just as I should

Paying penance for a life I never really understood

…

The Credo of a Knight Errant:

An age of conceit, just like the last

Shrouded, blinded and fooled

This time by our pixelated masks

Damned to look everywhere for the answers

Except in front of our own face

Huddled in tiny rooms

Alienated from the human race

A private corner of oblivion

With a pretty name for a place

Consigned to our own personal prisons

Floating in infinite space

The only light in the dark room of our souls

The flickering golden candle glow

One hopes against hope

Those you let in to show

Aren’t Myrmidon soldiers

There to kill the flame by blow

For it is a precious source of celestial power

Upon which you alone God bestowed

To warm and light your way

Oh so tenderly, meek and mild

Amidst a kaleidoscope whirlwind

Hues and elements clashing in the wild

So now pray

Pray like a lover, not a beggar

There, the guru points you to your knees

For rapturous devotion and egoic dissolution

For success, his advice is wise to heed

In order to supersede the terrors of the age

Of any age, the human condition

You must persevere through this mechanical war of attrition

With words like these

The bawdy masses won’t receive my verse

And, indeed, verse is perhaps already dead

Yet it is the candle flame which lights my way ahead

It is the prime mover of my love

It is the redeeming passion to the wasteland and devastation

In the minefield of my past

Pure and fragile, like a white dove

And that deserves my loving attention

As much as any mistress

And the sultry shadow she would cast

For the conversion of the particular affectations

From banality to sublime exaltations

Is as noble a battle to fight as ever was

For la boheme & his paroles d’amour

They are his only armor and sword

With which to combat Death’s bony grip

Until it all fades to darkness evermore

…

Bad for me:

Slamming doors and tears pitter patter

Plopping on tile floors

Sounds escape the fortress of your bedroom

You’ve barricaded yourself behind

I stand still in a grip petrified

On the other side, in the gloom

My heart sinking faster than lead

In solemn doom and dread

Trudging downstairs bewildered

Head hanging in shame

My blood swirling around the ice block of my heart

Boiling into steam with rage

Fell asleep on your couch

Not knowing what to do

Too hurt, confused and pissed

To see the manipulation or abuse

The night was supposed to be ours & ours alone

Now we’re both in scorched soul torment

Pulsating wounds, exposed

From the beginning

We set each other aflame

Like no other

Yet the flames of passion around our hearts

Made them too hot to the touch

We bring each other to new ecstatic heights but the fall crashes into dust

Around you, I feel crippled without a crutch

When we’re not making love

A conversation is like holding fog in my clutch

One scorcher of a summer

Like the planet of our future

A relationship filled with desire and disgust

Contrast moments of quiet bliss by the lake

Swinging softly in the hammock

Dozing tenderly in each other’s arms

So happy we can hardly stand it

Yet like any teen thrill ride

We’re bound to plummet once we summit

You hunt my weaknesses like a bloodhound

Bounding straight towards your prey

As if a trail of blood leads you

Leads you clear as day

I feel the crushing shame crack my mask

Knowing I’ll sink and drown

Kicking down with it because secretly, I love it

Pretending I’m on dry, safe ground

Actually unmoored and adrift at sea

Paralyzed by the storm inbound

Yet still, you intoxicate me

I’m the beach

You are the waves

On which they pound

…

A Fallen Angels Soliloquy:

Angel on my shoulder

Devil in my saddle

Purgatory on my mind

Gray fog hanging over

The bog of my psyche

Patron spirit of polarity

The sun’s rays melt

The layers of miasma

Burning off the weight of confusion

Fire dancing

Like a little girl’s feet on pavement

Needless to say, trapped by delusion

I am filled with purpose

Filled with a unifying mandate

To spread love, peace and sanctity

I only wish for completeness

For myself, and for others

Yet the contempt and impurities

Within my heart

Cannot be contained

I am not only the light

My heart is full of darkness too

Shadows at noon, dark side of the Moon

Rampant, electric tendrils of power

Seeking expression, needed for use

But what for and how to control it?

I deign not seek the answer

Should the candles of finitude

Be thrown into the bonfires of infinity

They hardly light the way

Are of no practical use

And prone to being blown out

So they refuse the definition of the ultimate

And thus are tossed into the great fire

…

Saving the World and Forgetting to Love:

In our race to save the planet

The demagogues of salvation have forgotten their prime mover

Moments of unhurried tenderness

Among loved ones, truly precious to us

As they harangue and scold

Installing intellectual judges in our hearts

Scouring us with vehement guilt

Simultaneously smothering the capacity for forgiveness

If you forgive, you grow in love

If you grow in love, you love greater

Greater in capacity, competency, and expansive empathy

Indeed, life’s garden abounds in bloom

And your cup runneth over

Just so, it is eminently natural

When one improves in love for oneself

And what you inhabit around you

With all you can

There you have it

For what’s a world saved, without love ?