AURORA

The sun will still excite the sky

Despite the inky veil of night,

Enrapturing the mortal eye

With glowing tapestries of light.

Apollo shuttles burning thread

To weave through Earth’s magnetic loom

As weft and warp cross overhead

Make dancing fabrics in the gloom.

The rainbow is a candle flame

To this inferno in the heaven;

The sun’s monotonous and tame

As through its course it’s slowly driven.

An emerald yields to azure hue

Then twists into a violet whirl.

From time to time there’s crimson, too,

And ghostly swathes of vibrant pearl.

Uplifted is the human gaze

That will through frosty midnights mark

Ribbons of luminescent rays

Which cast a shadow in the dark.

***

APOSTASY

Backtracking over Jordan, ever growing

  Nostalgic for some golden baby cattle;

Sick of seeking for milk and honey flowing,

  Too much of meeting heathens in a battle.

In turning Egyptward, I’m pining, longing

  For former shackles’ iron consolation

Where there’s enough to eat; but here, prolonging

  Of wandering and risking my starvation.

Floods of the Nile exceed the desert sand! —

  The latter parches my desire to roam;

  I’d rather dwell in slavery at home 

Then hunt mirages of the Promised Land.

  I know of better reasons to perspire

  Than chasing after clouds and poles of fire.

***

“I’M LESS YOUR SPOUSE AND MORE A FICKLE FLIRT”

  I’m less your spouse and more a fickle flirt,

For I am wedded to inconstancy;

  As eager plighting troth as to desert

Such solemn vows for fits of flagrancy.

  My prayers, all sweetness, rise like incense smoke

When fortune and fair weather come to pass;

  But I belch forth, to blister and to choke

In my distress, tirades of mustard gas.

  I count the meagre atoms of my faith

And sound the void where fortitude should dwell –

  Brittle resistance to that vexing wraith

That salivates to see my soul in Hell.

  No hope except I’m copiously shriven

  By You who thirsts to see my soul in Heaven.

***

MATURITY

  Does age lament its lost enthusiasm

Or does it mourn eroded beauty more

  In gazing o’er the ever-widening chasm

Of yesteryear, what’s hopeless to restore?

  Is it regret for sordid follies done

In Youth that more excites our breath to sighs

  Or else suspiring, as our life has run,

For halcyon delights we used to prize?

  The thrills that give the younger age its savor

And paint sensation’s hues in rosy blush

  Decay into a stale, insipid flavor

We chew despairingly as ashen mush.

  Thus, faced with Youth’s resplendence fair and bright

  Our envy rears its ugly head in spite.