Illusions Of Reality

The cast iron sky in late afternoon
glares about,
seeking, searching out the molten sunset,
it is not yet her time;
she lies, yet, quietly beyond the reef,
laughing, dancing, spinning,
higher than ever before;
no broken mirrors to reflect such twisted vanity;
still searching in a frustrated rage...

Where is the dawn when you held me close?

...a ravaged life asking all the wrong questions,
tears of frozen grief forever glued to your face,
eternal pain that cannot be forgotten,
cannot be remembered,
in a dream, a thousand shattered hearts,
broken against the dayspring;
unruly rulers reviled at the glint of light on
a bare blade,
children of the street whose stories, untold, remain
among hidden fires of night,
scorching paper freedoms lost in the rain;
playing silent hands of broken pianists
crashing, empty in the early morning war,
an island in the worn pages of tomorrow,
torn tons of glistening garbage in the sun;
gambling men on a train bound for hell
asking the dreams of the wise men,
junkies and tweekers,
pimps and whores,
street lamps wash the darkness of lonely,
empty gutters of human innovation;
you don't recall your birth,
you won't know your death,
you can't stop running in the unmoving race,
you pray to your god who does not listen,
does not understand,
does not care,
you seek profits from your prophets,
ministers of early mourning sermons, drunk,
telling lies about lies about truths for a small offering;
your children wrapped in cotton armor,
standing at the mercy of life,
you think you can protect them,
with your ossified emotion,
your eye-bending stupidity,
your borrowed insanity;
creepy, crawly politicians
spouting mass production answers
to irrelevant questions,
answering none, slithering away,
ghosts from a fictitious past life
lived in iron grey halls of illusion,
where three questions have five true answers...

And where dwell you, my love?

...a cloudless world of everlasting sterility;
cast iron sky melds the molten sunset,
marooned on a reef of memory,
reaching for a questionable future,
falling from the precipice of the past,
walking the paths of those who walked before.

© 2008 Michael Shelby