Forevermore

When unearthly hellhounds are in hot pursuit
When the tree of despair has taken root
When waspish louts pester and swarm
And the landscape assumes unreal form;
When the countless hourglass grains dwindle into thin air
When coldhearted Fortune passes judgment unfair
When heaven sends the fearsome owl
To portend our murder most foul,
What comes before?
All or some to remember forevermore.

We escape into a laughable dream
And recall that which we’ve already seen,
Or imagine in zany radiance
The sort of things that make lunatics dance.
We fly back to a time vivid, not grey,
For, certainly, we have seen better days.
Perhaps we will fly back to a time of life past
When no one expected to breathe one’s last.
Our mind caters to and comforts us,
For neither rhyme nor reason can we trust
To provide the flowery lapse to enjoy our last breath
Before we are recalled to countenance pale-faced Death.
We are transported to a fairyland
Where mumbling peasants rise by their own hands
To the vaults of majesty,
But it’s a grim travesty,
For we reawaken to the sound
And fury of Reality, the otherwise droning debater
At whom our imagination scoffed and to whom turned traitor.
And in the next second we are trampled by the rioters.

We cannot repudiate our titles as proprietors
Of our dun fate.
The hour is late.
Owl flees rook, who then caws the time,
The disease we’ve caught from life’s grime
Inauspiciously catches us lonely, wretched, and plaintive.
It’s the critical moment, and we can no longer lie stiff.