The piper played the requiem

calling the mistral home

busy after the equinox

and blood moon eclipse

that set surreptitious specters

free from epic sleep

dreams of fanciful fancy

where the princess found

no charming after the storm.

 

Play piper a desperate dirge

so all souls can laugh at

such a jaded jiggered joke

that the death of dearth

requires on the day that

celebrates souls that travel

in invisible steam powered airships

bringing mortals dreams

filled with empty awakenings.

 

Celebrate the 15 minutes of fame

fortunate mortals endure

as their incomplete life

lacking luxury of immortality

while Mother Mary smiles

with tender understanding 

tears falling from empty eyes

that once saw their truth

as only a moment lost in 

a deep sea free of light.

 

Awaken from the night of 

the dead now the once 

roaming spirits return to

their simple existence of

pure languorous light to

to tell stories in poems

that the piper might play

again more eloquent eulogies

to charm those who can listen.

The midnight sun set on my dreams

that no longer mattered since

life left me on the side of the road.

Two robins packed for the last train south.

Trees now but skeletons of summer splendor.

The gypsy mystic was long gone from city streets.

Once alive parks and playgrounds empty of laughter.

 

How has our time together vanished so quickly.

Our halcyon banter evaporated like fog in the sun.

Joyful excursions through mountain flowers now dead.

We swam naked in a cold mountain river now frozen.

 

Bear sleeps hungry in a hidden musty forest cave.

Red Tail sails in the sun looking for a last meal.   

My kitchen sink overflows with last week’s dishes.

Outside my window a lone flower longs to bloom again.

A dead boat lay solemnly upon white sand

too far from the turquoise water shoreline

at the border of impenetrable Mexican jungle

where Mayans and jaguars once held court.

 

Hemingway knew he should die in 1961

when there were no more stories to tell,

when everything became too hard to say,

when fiction had become too real to write.

 

A tall woman in a shimmering white dress

that glistened like scales on a silvery fish

arose from the sea sliding slowly to shore,

she more for living on land than in sea.

 

A lone red buoy bobbed in a gentle swell

witness that all had been finally resolved.