Never freak out when everything goes wrong:
   that won’t last long.
Don’t strut your stuff when you’ve raked in a hefty ***:
   you’re not so hot.

Whether your life has been a living hell
   that Dante couldn’t tell,
or if you’ve basked in the best of everything
   the world can bring,

life’s a balancing act.  I’ll tell you why:
   you’re going to die,
like it or not, so you might as well have fun
   before you’re done.

Sip the champagne, buy paintings, sail a yacht,
   spend what you’ve got.
Every clock is a time bomb:  there’s no way to know
   when it will blow.

The mint DeLorean,  the Pacific Heights flat,
   even your pedigreed cat,
it all ends up, whatever you did,
   with your slacker kid.

The trust fund brat and the boy who grew up in a dump
   hold hands and jump
into the pit we’re herded toward like cattle.
   You hear that rattle?

The gods are shaking your dice:  the next sunrise
   may be snake eyes.
  

----------------------------------------------------
Copyr­igh­­t 2025 by Jon Corelis

joncorelis.com

Perhaps you think I groom them for my gain.
After all, I am just a Slytherin.
We are selfish beasts, some call us evil.
So clearly I'm just polishing my gems.

But I have to ask, do you know the pain?
The lonesome ache I find myself within?
A filthy balloon, just pass the needle!
If love won't find me, at least I'll have them.

sweet chloe have you tamed that pretty bird,
as light as southern breezes on your arm?
how many hours have you beguiled and heard
your sparrow sing for you with graceful charm?
my poet's pen falls restless to the ground,
my fevered mind can find no peace today,
for all you do is praise his lilting sound
and pay no heed to anything i say.
great neptune throws his trident in despair,
apollo breathes, his tresses filled with fire
and i am left with solitary care
for jove cannot bring comfort with his lyre.
i do not wait forever at your door,
the burdened ocean storming to the shore.

now cast aside by pyrrah’s glowing fire,
bereft and waste, his wild heart never tamed,
long flown away, burnt out upon the pyre
that winter's teary passion once inflamed.
apollo’s chariot climbs in the east,
and delphi’s altar calls with prayers and songs,
while chilly mortals long for summer’s feast
bewildered by sad winter’s sorry wrongs.
the spring draws near upon the roman shore,
and laughter fills the streams, an aerie choir,
while my new lover hammers at the door
seducing me with roses from the briar.
slow winter pulses quicken and awake,
and love, sweet love, will give and then forsake.

I thirst in my search
for words
that came first

in verse and in song
what's been here all along

since Peking (wo)Man
singing in the womb
at Zhoukoudian

when the first moon climbed
above branches frozen in time -

our rhythm and rhyme -
a memory of a memory
of the history

of how a poem came to be.