dying and living in a pantheon
~


a dusty storage place
for basement keepsakes,
somewhere out back,
full of emeritus stocking stuffers,
an ex-trendy,
royalty-dethroned room

where kept
ancient scriveners,
last year's flash frozen princesses and
plastic wrapped scribes,
cloud stored,
on soft decaying hard drives

prior renters, leases unrenewed,
now pushed aside,
upcoming upstanding upstarts,
looking to trade up,
let bigger quarters,
an existential reminder,
that in the word game,
no perm-press recognition,
in today's poetry biz,
it's what ya done lately

deaf dumb blind,
unsung former idols,
talk to mirrors
that no longer answer,
dial 1-800-pantheon,  
sorry, number no longer in service,
so you voyageur-visit
the other side of Styx,
a bluff overlooking
a body's work,
where glory fleeting
comes to rest,
where time judges well,
partiality impartial,
selects thy best

author an audience of sole one
that be more than
good and plenty,
a heaping teaspoon of sufficient,
glance back at discarded, outdated maps,
glory may transit
but satisfaction eternal,
when you read the old writes thinking
****, did I write this?
"Yes," answers a creased smile
cracking crusted lips

~~~~~

then blood of pride and satisfy, rejuvenates

chest warms, heart thumps,
quill beckons, tablet charges - jot hot

write for whom the bell tolls,
knowing full well
this raucous bell tolls for thee,
you re-become an
irrational ill-defined room possessed

heat,
this realized, fevered and fervent, physical pleasure,
sensory gladness,
the fat fullness of creation,
flooded breathable sunlight,
stormy uncalming indigo waters,
a natural disquietude beckons,
arousal of an old-friend welcoming

this encompassing emotion,
no-direction-known fearful commotion,
your mind, all skin,
tissues enflamed,
your ears speak,
your tongue listens,
five senses unified in
disheartened happy discordant perfection,
this you recognize,
this familiar,
is not a storage place
this, your true everlasting pantheon

glory glory - expel thy word works,

*the burnishing of fain fame
is not walled jailed,
but in-deed
actionable and transitory best honored,
peaks of mountainous-emotions, homeland, motherland,
recording, recoding in words-vision notions,
this is the one,
the inky clarity pantheon place
of the living poet

when I turned eighteen
sadness filled my cups,
for carefree was now gone,
laying side by side
with all my companion figurines,
off to rest in a boy's toy chest
in a backyard cemetery hid,
certainty assured
all that I was, so far,
all that I will be,
uncalming coming forevermore,
unwilling borne upon
the newly time redesigned,
heavy load shoulders of adult responsibility

when I turned thirty,
sadder now by the means and meaning of accumulation,
having thrice now measured the length of a stick of life,
denominated as a decade,
wiser now that the children underfoot,
certainty assured,
would have to pay
bills of lading for cargoes,
not of their own choosing,
indeed, selected unwisely,
by men like me, and men before,
all too old or too gone,
to be prosecuted now for the
short sightedness of reckless timidity

when I turned fifty,
the shoulders slightly stooped and gently curved,
my gait and pace slowed by weight,
pockets laden with undesired memories,
unfinished arguments,
dreams that morphed and morted into
failed schemes that with the
certainty assured,
the tallied ache of known losses
will always weigh greater
than the
unknown of opportune

now with seventy,
so near, onrushing to the sounds
of old men and their noisy excuses
of babbling, ironical,
eerie similar to the parental smiling hushing
of a newborn's squeaking,
a youthful brook,
happily to an open sea arushing,
hurrying in the fullness of innocence to
it's demise

the line of sight to the horizon,
far shorter now than ere before,
with greater certainty assured,
that near my god than thee,
my sadness daren't hope to dissipate, nor lift
as once it did,
an early morn mist rising off the river, 
freshly sun burnished, then miracle banished,
sacrificing itself as a hopeful oracle of a new born day

recurring haunted words
like rest, best and tried,
the only legacy remaining to gift,
but one thing yet measures a comforts,
a red cross blanket round the shoulders thrown that with
certainty assured,
the marvy joy of life all in,
be our given right to err and learn wisdom at our own pace

so here I freely confess
with wry, sly smile that we


proved ourselves to be
victims of our unintended tendencies,
successful in being

**all too human