We have come a long way —
you and I —
sauntering along paths of tales,
narrow, slippery, serpentine, endless.
We crouch at spider-ways,
through the fustiness of late-rising dawn,
feeling the rapid beats of a stolen heart and the
entanglement by an unending network of
webs and encroaching thorns.
Cockroach feelers we rely on to guide us
through the length of seaside lichgates.
Life is one Hell of a place, we agree.
It’s a cup of cliché we drink on daily basis—
like hastily brewed coffee at the city’s rush hour.
But, like the radio, it has a tuning fork —
and with it, one operates on frequencies
mute and clear, wavy, far and distant.
It’s a challenge.
Remember Michelangelo
lying supine on ramshackle 16th century scaffolds
and painting the Sistine Chapel for four long years,
his fragile back hurting, his paint brush screaming,
his pots of paint on tilt . . .
Now, that’s some labour!
And with restive paints of stress dripping,
Dripping, and streaming and sweating down on the
broad canvas several feet below, staining
the usefulness of enchanting woods . . . !

Oh, I hate the putrefaction of desolate souls.