"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Sonorous sensation seething sorrowful


                                      Sagacity serendipitous

     Sing-song similes sidling southward

Seemingly slipping ******

spectacular symmetry shows sputtering soul



                       Fallacies

                                   fall

          fluttering

                          fecundity fearlessly flaunting

former friendships foundered



                 narcissistic

N u a n c e s

                                                                                            nearing

nightshades
      nymph-like nuptials

                                                             nocturne

destiny Disposes

                damaged defenses

duly dramatizing

             dour dowager dreams

declaiming drowsy doleful deeds


                      Euphemistic

elegiac

            embargo/encounter

exiled emissary

endless
               ecstatic
                              echoes
                                            echoes
                                                          echoes
                                                                        echoes
                                                                                      echoes

                                           .............................................

Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green leaves as they shake
Far down within some shadowy lake,
To me a painted paroquet
Hath been—a most familiar bird—
Taught me my alphabet to say—
To lisp my very earliest word
While in the wild wood I did lie,
A child—with a most knowing eye.

Of late, eternal Condor years
So shake the very Heaven on high
With tumult as they thunder by,
I have no time for idle cares
Though gazing on the unquiet sky.
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon my spirit flings—
That little time with lyre and rhyme
To while away—forbidden things!
My heart would feel to be a crime
Unless it trembled with the strings.

Twisting

Slithering

A never-ending chaotic morass

Winding through

No sooner does the light of dawn bleed over the horizon

Than the shadowy form of dread

Eclipses and quenches the fledgling beam

Waging a constant battle

Darkness always seemingly victorious

or...

Ba da da ba

Juxtapose the extremities

Daddy-o

The slicker downs a bottle of rye

Hits the open road in a beat up coupe

Off to see that daring young man

On the flying trapezoid

Zoom - zap - yowza

Upside

Downside

Thru the water

Ellipsis!!

Awakening

Comes

Slowly

But

Inevitably

Like

the inexorable process

Of

continental d r i f t

Self-awareness

Dawns upon the unsuspecting soul

Crashing down

Edifice of  substance

No more.

You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea);
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a Springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with ****,

The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.

Hatred and vengence--my eternal portion
Scarce can endure delay of execution--
Wait with impatient readiness to seize my
Soul in a moment.

****** below Judas; more abhorred than he was,
Who for a few pence sold his holy Master!
Twice betrayed, Jesus me, the last delinquent,
Deems the profanest.

Man disavows, and Deity disowns me:
Hell might afford my miseries a shelter;
Therefore Hell keeps her ever-hungry mouths all
Bolted against me.

Hard lot! encompassed with a thousand dangers;
Weary, faint, trembling with a thousand terrors,
I'm called, if vanquished, to receive a sentence
Worse than Abiram's.

Him the vindictive rod of angry Justice
Sent quick and howling to the centre headlong;
I, fed with judgment, in a fleshy tomb am
Buried above ground.