Drinking has been an exercise in
lunacy and sorrow,
like jumping off a cliff,
for tomorrow's dead dreams.
The fruit of the vine should
be sweet and sentimental,
like mamas and moonlight.
With a fistful of memories and
a soul full of pain,
I try it all again;
I chase the phantom.

Up with the sun, his mind razor-keen,
he hikes up his trousers and starts his machine.
Though barrels of funk feed their reek to the dawn,
he pays them no heed; the trashman rolls on.
Up alleys, down thruways, past storefronts and stands,
he guides his behemoth with rock-steady hands.
Though big rigs and small fry speed hither and yon,
he sticks to his creed; the trashman rolls on.
Down **** to Impostor, past each stinking bin,
he makes for the junkies and merchants of sin.
Though winos raise eyelids, though punks point and grin,
he straightens his shoulders and thrusts forth his chin.
******* and derelicts lurch from their sties.
Pimps and their harlots flash Jacksons and strut.
“Hey, you in the truck,” a pickpocket cries,
“What are you, buddy, some kinda nut?”
With hands on the levers, and brightly lit eyes,
The big driver leans out and coolly replies:
“No, sir. I’m the trashman.”
And down comes the fork, and up goes the muck.
The gears maul the lowlifes, the fork rocks the truck.
Though hollers and screams shake his steel mastodon,
he longs to proceed; the trashman rolls on.
The truck passes perverts, creeps churned in its bile,
up Felon to Pusher, down Vicious to Vile,
where block upon block, where mile upon mile,
the hookers regale him with smile upon smile.
Near-naked floozies exhibit their wares.
But this man just glares while they trumpet in pique.
“Hey, you in the truck,” a drunk strumpet cries,
“What are you, mister, some kinda freak?”
His hands on the levers, with brightly lit eyes,
the big driver leans out and gently replies:
“No, ma’am. I’m the trashman.”
And down comes the fork, and up goes the slime.
The gears maul the contents to streetwalker chyme.
Though hollers and screams are distressing and drawn,
his heart fails to bleed; the trashman rolls on.
Pining for virtue, he clatters along,
up Bully to Bigot, down Trollop to Spawn,
past Conman and Cutthroat to Thirteenth and Greed.
He steadies, caresses, and readies his steed. Virtue, indeed.
The trashman rolls on.



Okay. NOW CUT AND PASTE THE LINK BELOW TO READ HERO, A SPRAWLING, GROUNDBREAKING FANTASY FOR GROWNUPS IN TWO PARTS. (BUT YOU MUST CLICK ON THE PROVIDED LINK AT THE CONCLUSION OF PART ONE TO ACCESS PART TWO! THAT’S WHERE THIS TALE’S AMAZING RESOLUTION LIES. But please...intelligent, soulful readers only!)
NOW HERE’S THAT LINK:

https://allpoetry.com/poem/14922744-Hero---Part-One-by-Ron-Sanders


Copyright 2020 by Ron Sanders.

contact:
ronsandersartofprose@yahoo.com

The soldier waits ...
With rifle unaimed
With bullets unfired
With bayonet unfixed
With uniform unknown
With boots untrodden
With rations uneaten
With canteen unrepleneshed,
With words unspoken
With letter unread
With locket unopened
With face unseen
With dreams undreamt
With life unlived
With love undiminished,
For a grave to be dug.

You asked:
"How you came to your dead end?"

How did I?
Perhaps too much of chasing butterflies,
or maybe running barefoot in hot, avid pursuit
of those looping, berserk kites

adrift like airborne serpents

in delirious evening skies.

Then there were those chimeric rainbows -
sedately fantastic illusions of dream jobs,
and loving homes with ambrosial glows.

They all eventually led to the same prosaic end,
for, any-which-way, all roads wound up
at appropriately conventional
and consequently beaten bend.

Till the chase went on, it was the same old story -
All fulfilled ambition promptly subject to
increasingly falling marginal utility.

After all of it was said and done,
every little crown lost and won,
the agony of the question still remained
no last words arose,
to which to exclaim and say Yay!

Life had me in its hook. See:?
while this is what it meant to be free: !

✽

Fossilized in my den, I stared wistfully
at life's irrevocable loose ends
and this is how my friend
I arrived at my proverbial dead ends.

The poets are all just lost finding words.
And when they corner something’s essence,
A glimmer of truth or a scratch at the profound,
Does not all but a measly tuft of hair escape their page?

O timeless sloth, I must with thee abide,
Let it be not to my own destruction.
Another life from me thou must divide,
Say to me t’was of mine own instruction!

I cling desperately to thine branches
I must weather the slings and arrows of
Most untimely sharp commands, and blanches
At my staunch resoluteness thereof.

Cease! Cease! See not the moss amongst my hairs,
Nor my talon-like nails, still, motionless.
Judge not, entwined as thou art in bland affairs
In your gray monuments to boastfulness

For nothing is equal to nothing.
To mime futile work is all but bluffing.

Cold sneering leaves stick through frightful roots
Green shatters droplets of desire looking to ensnare views
A crescent wind sticks through circular layers ripping with bitter apathy
Yet paying to days of grey

Now I have seen divinity
In clearings wide as all the sky,
All grassy green and riotous:
Long blades a-rattling, aimed at Heaven,
Warring with an unseen wind.

And I have seen futility
As plain as winter's frosty breath,
Where fields of green gave way to death
And skies of blue surrendered, too,
Wrapped up, abandoned in a white tomb.

They'll muster up for war again
When Spring trips in to dance and sin
As if their bellicose endeavors
Ever had a snowball's chance.

And here is Hell, their every movement
Sisyphus against the rock -
Each blade of pristine imperfection
Dances by the wind's design.