Down the avenue,
in my front view,
from a green and white lawn chair
under red and black awning
(you caught me yawning)
on a long cobblestone road,
I spied a luxurious toad
wearing top hat and waist coat
hopping from yonder moat,
led by the smell of meals of worms,
(think of the germs)
the result of a damp night
exposed by streetlight
whence the whole world celebrated,
accompanied by cheering most conflated.
There I saw fireworks reflected in massive glassy puddles,
water collected in wide pools from the wee-hours morning storm;
my friends, you would not believe what happened next:
The well-dressed amphibian attracted friends,
more if not as many, of the numbers found in locusts swarm,
all wearing the same get-up and unnatural natural grin.
Passersby did remark of said spectacle in the corners of buildings
where small patches of smog, fog, masked cigar smoke
(no joke)
of pompous folk,
who I could tell they were because of turned-up chin,
swishing their tonic and gin,
as if money could protect them from committing any kind of sin.
This odd celebration stretched their minds, with such limits:
the lefts, the rights, they no longer had,
the dream they had forgotten,
and no consideration for why they were sad, mad, or otherwise glad.
In my lawn chair, I stretched my legs
careful not to squash (like eggs)
whatever green moving carpet
was now underfoot; the massive movement did foliage uproot,
ignoring not the plague of undoing,
mistaking not their mission in carrying American flags used for semaphore
to signal onlookers, observers, even a discerning sort,
to take cover in homes, gigantic subterranean tunnels, or even a fort.
So great was their weight upon the road,
the masses of them broke the cobblestones apart.
You might say nay to this yet unbelievable tale,
but I insist, you look past the veil,
not with eyes to look, but an eye to see,
to do more than exist, instead to be,
certainly, for God’s sake, you must agree.
What pestilence might be next in End of Days
not fully explained. In fact, truth disdained.
My cigar it burns in forefingers fixed
like the flame of action betwixt
now and then, as sunrise chases the shadows and mist,
secrets of the black hats’ doings with no place to hide
fall from a list written on newspaper’s front
with headlines announcing the arrival of plague
(so vague)
and the many, many wild animals the white hats hunt.
The shift in consciousness the key to changing tide,
the fixers have no place to hide,
what pictures from these lyrics now enter your head,
bringing thoughts alive or leaving them dead,
what changes in you have come about…
if I had actually lied?
If so, and nevertheless, this result, this tumult,
leaves millions of small green bodies in tuxes
to be dissolved into nothing,
nothing more than
red biological flakes floating up to the heavens.
What sucks is…
the illusory answer to your three-dimensional question,
your pre-ponderance and your reflection.
Enough, I say, for today, it begins.
Laughter, not sadness, not losses, wins.
I pack up my lawn chair,
my quill and my paper,
(whether cheating or fair)
for I was never here…
nor there.
Frank Marquez Writings 