What once held sway

Has perished without

Any genuine warning,

Yet those antique dreams

With the tenacious seams

Haven't ceased to pester,

And a world-weary Atlas, 

Ready to drop the ball, 

Wonders why 

Should it him befall

To be tethered thus

To the ends of Earth, 

Having to buttress 

A world half-conscious

Only half the time...

But then again, 

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The podium shakes, 

The applause fades, 

Truisms and lies

Scatter to the winds;

And History repeats...

...But Hindsight waits, 

Smirking in the wings...

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Happenstance after happenstance,

With some choice in between:

The rosary of our lives,

With moments replete,

Whispers sometimes

In the stillness

That, yes, we are just

Flying on borrowed wings,

But, oh, what a journey

This has been!

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A jesting world

Nesting beneath

A veil of ignorance,

Sensing the comeuppance

Yet washing hands

Of facts bearing fruit, 

For what use

Are mummified truths

Cradled deep within

The bosom of the cosmos,

When but the next blink

Can lead straight

To the very next

Comforting conceit?

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Inscrutable to ourselves, 

Flying on borrowed wings, 

Regurgitating calamities, 

Requiems and hymns,

Our truths flitting 

In and out of fables, 

Yet our moonlight-misted words

Always somehow able

To herald the dawn, 

Replenishing our song...

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Hapless passerby,

Glint in the eye of the Sphinx:

Riddle rekindled...

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An owl takes wing,

Shudders at what it sees, 

Rests on the shoulder

Of Minerva, begs her

To bless with wise counsel

The world-weary, 

The battle-worn, 

All who have lost

Sight of terra firma, 

As well as firmament...

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Only tethered to the ether, 

Where to find a beacon

To the blameless dream,

When the sibyl's susurration

Befuddles, and the lyre lures,

But in its lowest notes

Knows that should

The Idyll dissolve, 

The Farce unfurls?

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Wrestling with illusions, 

With fiendish and apocryphal delusions, 

Foraging for the prophesied freedom,

Disparaging every funhouse mirror;

Unschooled, yet intimating knowledge

Of cornerstones and sacred particularities, 

And, with synapses on high alert, 

Awaiting contingencies to coalesce, 

Some elemental certainty to effervesce,

Illumining, perhaps, sturdier next step...

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An orphaned wisdom,

reared by the eras

but abandoned to dust, 

trailing its melancholy 

of understanding, counterpoint 

to the sleights of hand, 

and, if witnessed, glistening

like an act of christening,

in a decipherable tongue...

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Who was to foretell

The blame-thirsty like to search

Where phantom foes lurk?

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The poltergeists of every

fait accompli, roam

freely but unfree, 

uttering their guttural

regrets, with  a

fluency ghostly, and 

so very costly...

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Truths tremble on a tightrope, 

while concerted Complacency

watches from below;

an ageless spectacle, 

as that same, stale

double bluff reverberates, 

eclipsing the unsung,

only to favour the glorified, 

least resisted path...

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An anonymous melancholy.

The gravity of the question

Met with but the frailty

Of the response, something

Trite about sine qua nons,

Something feeble from

The shibboleths of old...

And that's just when

Mellifluous madmen, 

Glint in their eye, 

Deliver such gladdening

Tidings, and the fairytale

Lives, for a while, 

At least, usurper

Of the breaths of tr...

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Disbelief suspended, 

Mischief invented:

The dominion of dreams

Aflicker with potential,

Afloat with the tangential,

Where daredevils set sail,

Hypnotic courage ablaze,

Hurtling, untethered, towards

The lands of Maybe, or Never...

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There's a hallelujah beckoning, 

And the far scent of a reckoning,

A doleful scramble 

To steal a march on

The frenzy of finality,

All the while yearning

For yet another

Unearned moment of unreality...

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Dithyrambs abound

For emperors without clothes;

Is the game not rigged?

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On Cassandra's scroll,

Syllables of ceaseless doom

That no one would heed...

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Placating relentless yesterdays,

Pleading to curry favour with tomorrow,

Missing all the gentle secrecy of zephyrs,

As if preferring the fate of Sisyphus...

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Though firmaments need

Your testimony of wings,

In shadows marooned...

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Eyes averted, will deserted,

No Pythia to presage the passage;

Don't bother, an adage

Won't bandage this stale chaos,

And some pseudo-perspicacious

Soliloquy by the supercilious

Will only stall catharsis;

It was dream, dilemma,

Delusion, decision,

But the music won't stop

Unless faced, Pride abased,

And with an earnest

Nod to imperfection,

Redemption emb...

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Convictions lukewarm 

In the age of free-for-all;

Or is it freefall?

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The swan: no more song,

Marsyas: into silence flayed;

Hark the hand-wringing...

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The patrimony of a moment

In Time suspended:

To be caught unawares

In some ruthless hourglass, 

Scavenging for mercy

But only finding sand...

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Blood colours the fruits,

Thisbe weeps for Pyramus;

A mulberry dirge...

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With an eye to eternity

and an 'in memoriam' murmur

from the caverns of posterity,

it's all sotto voce prophecies

in some sub rosa haze,

too late to be wrangled 

out of conjecture

right at the juncture

of hope and fear, 

where sophistry comes cheap

and distant requiems plead:

why did you care

for every wrong thing?

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A silhouette staggers,

searches for clarity,

knows it can't be 

fully-fleshed yet

abhorring being 

a wraith, just 

asking to be seen,

craving that legitimacy

of witness; if Elysium

can't be reached, 

then, at least, ward

off the obsolescence...

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Farce interrupted

by battering ram.

Cutlass thrown

into erstwhile Shangri-la.

Palimpsest burdened

by repetition: eras

erased, yet more

of the same.

Recitals of remorse

caress the ears

of the wilderness

alone. 

Casuistry made king,

rather than curing

the paucity of wings...

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A songbird stutters

Unsure, fearful of a world

Deafened to its song

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Like a fatherless wind, 

A forlorn zephyr,

Graceless before 

The grains of sand,

Faithless when forced 

To take a stand;

A miser, counting favours

Instead of stars,

Wilting now with 

All that arrogant

Fragility of a daffodil, 

And all the while

Sisyphus winks, 

Ever so grateful 

For your fellowship...

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A chaos seraphic, 

with order translucent;

an anointing of wounds

awaiting in the wings, 

glistening with the courage

to salvage all merit

that remained from 

the truest of myths...

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Roots sinking, 

Conviction unblinking,

As cassocks demand 

The soul of the firebrand,

Just to master the survival

Of manicured lies 

And winsome façades,

Neglecting to reflect

That somewhere, some

Of the time, Prometheus

Doesn't genuflect, allows

The dream to effervesce, 

Willing to take

The punishment instead...

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Tidings of treachery

in a hummingbird's trill;

An exchange of aspect

between wolves and sheep;

A blameless moon usurped

to illumine vengeance

enacted by temporal 

fragments feigning a whole,

eschewing their divinity

for some sublunary throne...

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"Through millennia meander

as you will, with

a hymn, a maelstrom,

and a nemesis," said

the nightingale to

the king; "just don't

mind the augury, 

listen to me:

a dandelion whispers

its infinity to 

the blowing breeze, 

and a future's never

inked, but only

by starts timidly

backlit; Time will

impishly wink, as

Life and Death

dance in chiaroscuro,

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