Merry is the marionette,
almost a miniature man, who finds
his wires new-severed do flap
where once strum-tight they dictated
the when to fall octopus-limp
or to dance a sprightly jig
accompanied by silly jug tunes
he never even liked.

Stringlessness comes at a price.
On disjointed steps, Merry
would he have to make his own way
as an unprovided walker.
He sets out, philosophical
tomes in hand, for the wooded
fringes where a brook gurgles
and he'll grapple with consequence.

"I have a goodly appetite,"
Merry remarks. "I'll attack
these meaty words with fork and knife."
But the ideas do stew
and uncomfortably stowed
between 'Being and Nothingness,'
Merry wonders whether freedom is
not what he bargained for.

Just then he's startled by the tug
of wires gone taut, and caught up
in the dangle of an enormous
eagle, its talons eagerly
trying to untangle the strings
of a new play thing. Merry
might have wept, but who could cry
over the spilling of sour milk?

I've a sui-generis tendency to ape
that sainted cat from Assisi who lends me
this moniker with mouth-confounding interests.

I cop ascetically tasteless means for living
and an auto-inflicting knack, but we part
weepy ways at the nobler wherefore of his arts.

He self-stigmatized for Faith, I stab at lesser
Love's tortured metaphors, and my plump palms bare
only the throb of a heart foolish for one once gripped.

Move on I must, wholly hand-in-hand with hag Hope
to cajole a jab by bumptious Charity,  
touch of her tip flushing blues from my fleshy side.

Pickled on quixotic tonics
he strives for a polyglot's poise,
balancing plaster peas
at the end of his tippler's tongue.

But the rough-surfaced pearls prickle
his too-ticklish bed of pink,
and gulped down, he administers
only a lessoned indigestion.

Flipping the flop, he prevaricates
himself into the tight-fit corners
of a parallelogram traced
by unsolemn processionals

bedecked in platitudinous finery.
Their porous smirks drip sticky
reminders of a plethora
of previously pernicious exercises

and dampen his fluffy ambition,
prodding procrastinations until
his drunken promise dries out
to become a posthumous wish.

These three lay stranded, spit back
black by a whipped and layered sea.
How now, if ever he was vengeful,
Jonah must joyless chuckle to see it

These three who lay stranded with toys,
littering the sand — their phalli anchored,
oars stilled, and portholes spilling out
a last salty gasp to grasp it

These three who lay stranded, chasing
****** with a frantic gaze, to fetch help
or seek simple solace from the monstrous
riddles staining their glassy eyes

These three who lay stranded, smitten
again by land long-ago left to reverse
evolution's tide. God can't undo
their nifty trick swift enough to save

These three who lay stranded and wait,
lonely for their brothers still headed to shore.

Your name is Filbert.
I'd rather use you as Fill.
Fill, gods may have put you here
for a victimless chatter,
but I'll bring you up
with the nonsense charge to meet
false expectations. I know
we don't see heart-to-heart, that
parting shouldn't stop us
from connecting the pesky
dots of our pupils. Let's learn
to be adult about this
uncontrolled glowing.
Your flighted fancies
can't leave the tarmac
without making one feel bold,
another frightened,
and everyone is a skosh
confused in the end.
I hope it doesn't bound
too negative. I meant well.

His spring was short, and he wore it
damp and dreary with query bulbs lightly
weaved in a soiled waistcoat. He will be
ready for summer.

His summer comes modest, not hot
enough for milking. Answers flower few,
so he dons a leaf-cushioned jacket
and waits for the fall.

His fall arrives late, too sweetly
burning assents of decay. Cracks branch thin,
and he slaps on a sappy topcoat,
with dread of winter.

His winter bustles with a bite,
but its nibbles and noms are blessedly
brief. He sighs, "It's a shame my seasons
can only be four."

There's a temperamental rainbow
he's seen, peeking out now and again, when
it's not shyly hid in cumulus cubbies.

He might, he can, win its sparkly trust,
luring it to him, between rainy bouts,
with promises of mood-altering

medication. Then, clapped with a lightning
clout, he'll stuff it in ten-gallon tubs
to struggle, bawl, and futilely fill

his deviant's plan. For in that muffle
of tinted pleas, its droppered breath will
condense against lids clamped-down tight,

and bottoms can collect sunny flavors
he needs to slather on the lolling
tongue of his too humdrum day-to-day.