The napalan man in a violet cape  
descended the stair with a lopsided gait
a wretched procession, subscribers in cue
rattling off as they stream from the pew  

sounds and smells from a shadowy place
a catholic priest to gin up base
lanterns strung from bolted doors
cobbled streets and wooden floors  

stepping stones and iron bell
fortified by the citadel
hallowed halls and sepulcher
dragon cane for the horse drawn tour

castle turret,  archer holes
centaur scribed in chamber bowls
garden columns in courtyard view
the blood ballet and hullabaloo  

ancient tombs on warrior grounds
gods and saints who made their rounds
goliath still with battered scythe
knelt in prayer and mummified  

battle fires and crowds that roar
gallows, caves, abysmal war  
gargoyles flock the terraced *****
pearly gates to bring on hope  

serpents, snakes and burning ash
lava bombs and trident clash
mariners drift in absentee
as neptune rises from the Tyrrhenian Sea

Magic**

Read this to yourself.
Read it silently.
Don’t move your lips.
Don’t make a sound?
Listen to yourself.
Listen without hearing anything.
What a wonderfully weird thing, huh?

NOW MAKE THIS PART LOUD!
SCREAM IT IN YOUR MIND!
DROWN EVERYTHING OUT.
Now, hear a whisper.
A tiny whisper.

Now, read this next line in your best crotchety old man voice:

“Hello there sonny, does this town have a post office?”

Awesome! Who was that?
Whose voice was that?
Certainly not yours.

How do you do that?
How!?

Must be magic!!

A melancholy ***** we came to adore
in mournful tone, finish the tale abruptly
and sob, uncontrollably;
"Memories of my melancholy ******"
including "Love in the times of cholera"
are now part of our folklore, this land
of cashew groves and banana plantations
in  Indian landscape, far far away from Latin American shores.

Her lascivious days are over
death visits the house of love, blood splattered
and a haunt of dark happenings, that begets children with tails,
shame, honor and secrets creep out of manuscripts.
Gabo is no more, no more"Living to tell the tale"
the Part Two, promised before.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, after three false starts
goes to his final abode for rest, now.

A coded manuscript, written in
in classical Sanskrit,
(the language of all divine texts
of Indian sages of yore)
scripted by the mysterious gypsy,Melquiades
predicts the wipe out of Buendia clan
of five generations

Torrential rain and deluge engulf Macondo,
ends "One hundred years of solitude".
Gabo you point towards east
what is the answer to the conundrum of Buendias?

In Mexico city
they were preparing to take  Gabo to his last ride
to the origin of all magical realism he'd return

In a land far away,
yet exactly the same landscape as Latin Americas
we grieve his death as that of one of our own
Gabo, in past thirty years, you mysteriously taught us
to discern the magical realism of cosmos

She is the living embodiment of the cliché,
The song where the male sub-lead
Returns from some second shift, some third drink
To find she has gone, leaving some scrap-paper note,
Hastily scribbled and wholly incomplete,
Some variation upon Don’t try and find me,
And so she is suitably unfound herself,
As she has given great thought to her froms,
But rather short shrift to her tos,
Finding herself north of the Thruway,
Looking for somewhere to spend the night
(The twin motors of adrenaline and anxiety running on fumes)
Happening upon, as if almost by some beneficent magic,
A Travelodge bordered by an expanse of cornfield
(Long since gone to seed, the stalks bowed and spent,
Waiting for the patently overdue cob harvester)
And after she is checked in and somewhat unpacked
(The bored, bemused woman who slumps about the front desk
Mercifully sparing with the small talk)
The skies, which had been late-October slate blur-gray,
Slightly malevolent but only implicit in their threats,
Open up in a cold and unwelcome drizzle,
And, whys and wherefores being things for a later date,
She runs outside and begins dancing in the parking lot,
Unseen and unremarked upon,
And even though the rain is cold, soaking, grim in portent
(The forecast dourly noting the possibility of wet snow,
Nattering that accumulation is possible at higher elevations.)
She is seemingly unaware and unconcerned
As to the upshot of this drenching,
Any whispers of the two or three other occupants of the motel,
Any judgments passed upon her mad danse pour un,
As she has passed beyond any notion of admonition.