THE WORDS WE WEAVE

When last we met, lest I forget
We sadly focused on regrets
Maleficent, the time we spent
While chasing flesh with bad intent

A vain charade or masquerade
Disguising best-laid plans, we made
You promised me a miracle
A cup of blessings not quite full

But overflowing nonetheless
With words to blind the eyes, I guess
We tried to touch the sky instead
So difficult tied to your bed

A myriad of mayhem finds
The pathway to our soul unwinds
Like snakes uncoil or books unfold
Or stories waiting to be told

But let’s not get too far off track
By pointing out the things we lack
The facts look fine in retrospect
To justify what we neglect

A dream, a scheme, a final scene
The lovers died inside the stage
They stayed within the gaffer’s tape
Then kissed and made a grand escape

All the while, the audience smiled
With vague approvals, weak applause
Melodic final credits slowly rolled
Another tragic story told

It’s funny how we barter for
The pain we crave, the love we save
Like memoirs of what we abhor
Or roses for a shallow grave

I listened for those ebbing breaths
The echoes from your fleeting steps
Like lines entwined with tender care
And chances that we massacred

It’s sad to see the damage we
Create with lack of sincere thought
While acting out on impulse leaves
Our posts of plenty all for naught

So easily offending thee
With license for our poetry
While playing on your sympathies
But in the end it’s vanity

And though we give the credit where
We think it may or not be do
The prompters sometimes take offense
Thinking we have misconstrued

Yet innocently enough, we try
To stay inside those black ink lines
The colors that we sometimes choose
Determine if we win or lose

But back to secret words we weave
Like wicked games without frontiers
The syllables we gladly count
Amount to food for itching ears

We bear our souls for golden slips
Like pats upon our fragile minds
We covet praise with truth we flip
Trade our loves for precious time

And now it seems I’m so off-track
Melodic flow of seething doubt
Blurring lines of loss and lack
While on the inside, looking out

Spewing lines of reckless thought
As penance for a life of sin
I’m paying twice for life I bought
Writing poems on heads of pins

I saw you somewhat feminine,
Divine inside your word disguise
A goddess reigning in between
The sun and moon we compromised

With messages to guide the blind
And mischief for the not so wise
A renaissance of recompense
A book of promise full of lies

Yet, these are only lines to waste
Some fleeting time inside a tale
Like epitaphs, we cut and paste
Or testaments on how we fail

The sum of which is bait and switch
Or lovely soundscapes for the eyes
A finger on a trigger switch
Or death, we never realize

But once again, my pen has drifted
Far beyond this noble lane
One hundred lines of twisting rhymes
And stanzas that sound much the same

It’s easy just to ramble on
To gather words like leaves of grass
To babble as if nothing’s wrong
To lose your future in the past

Yet, looking back, I have a knack
For living in my fractured dreams
Accentuating all I lack
Replacing facts with rhyming schemes

I saw her somewhat masculine
A take-charge sort of hippie girl
She laid her problems at my feet
Like swine before a perfect pearl

But she was not a pig, oh no!
Just hungry for a wind of change
We often see the life we need
And label love as something strange

TM DiSarro