Author: lbstowe

It’s time to admit that it’s time to start over.
Even Rome & Paris survived their hangover.

Time to look soberly at consumption & trade.
Time to leave out the green god of money to fade.

It’s both opening night & the wrap party too.
The producers will flee & the cast will be slew.

What remains is the hall & the settings of stage.
The ushers & the orchestra fighting for wage.

Eventually, the boards will be trod once again.
Telling faded old stories with a fresh golden spin.

I’m never alone, not in my thoughts; all I have known are there.
The world is another story oft, it’s just me breathing air.

Perhaps there is room for more to breathe; if willing to they are.
I enjoy my solitude & it has carried me thus far.

Yet there is more to know in this life than family & art.
I’d welcome one who sees my wealth & would not ask me to part.

Someone who’d swell my horde of heart; by simply adding themselves.
Someone who’d swim inside my riches & mine with me my delves.

For I am fine just as I am…aware I’ve not got it all.
Though, if the right one came along, there’s room for him in my hall.

Stories dedicated to those with hopes.
Suspense & tragedy lining their tropes.

The light belied at times nearly gone.
The underdogs fighting with brains & brawn.

Characters pushed to their absolute limits.
Good & evil brawl in chaptered snippets.

Humanity present in each tale told.
Believable humans; both hot & cold.

Stress quickened pace as the numbers fly by.
First person omniscient dictates who’ll die.

He wants out for a couple days…certainly not forever.
No one mentioned the word escape…saying that’s never clever.

He knows the outside can kill you; it’s not a good place to live.
But cooped up for what seems a lifetime…something has gotta give.

Even a prisoner has furlough…even if under guard.
He wants to see past windowless walls…a walk around the yard.

Yet, his request was recorded & edited against him.
They made it sound like he asked for freedom…that costs life & limb.

His plea for leniency woven into capitol offense.
The keepers have it all on tape…the poor man has no defense.

So sad that books have lost their sway.
Pity our minds have gone astray.

We’re no longer seeking out tomes.
Bookshelves do not line our new homes.

Our love of language has soured.
No more shaped by words devoured.

We debate with false reference.
Shallow is the new preference.

Impoverished in our thinking…
Our ignorance, now, unblinking.

It’s nuts to me you’re still asleep when half the day is done.
I wonder whether you’re vampyr, hiding from the noonday sun?

The day is bright, but fading now; I greeted it at dawn.
Are you crepuscular & twilight; like dewdrops on a lawn?

I’m winding down the afternoon while you’re tossing on your cot.
What does the nighttime have for you that the broad daylight does not?

You are fond of interactive screens dividing you from life.
Don’t you hear the high-pitched reveille of the morning wood’s fife?

Our ships will pass, as our cycles align, once in a blue moon.
If it happens when the sun is out; I wonder if you’ll swoon?

Happily ever after? You’ve gotta be fucking kidding.
Linear living don’t work that way…neither does Fate’s bidding.

Thru an ocean of time, you conceive routes bereft of sorrow?
Today can’t be conceived absent yesterday & tomorrow.

Do you really desire stasis in amber stone forever?
Joy knows not of vacuums & without grief…love’s no endeavor.

You think the measure of your being is naught without a with?
A desert’s sandy grains crave water; though rare & nearly myth.

Why seek to fill your holes with someone you just have not yet got?
Be ye whole in who you are…& that includes the things you’re not.

So easy to not be patient; much quicker than silence & wait.
Never bothering with details; just hunger hunting for its sate.

Blind to any bigger picture; tunnel vision for winning now.
Closed off from any longer games; only this next move & its how.

The ease of pulling out plugs; the swiftness of life with a gun.
Forget even seeing the switch; the barrel sight shows what you’ve won.

One is dead & one left alive; the simple binary of war.
Just living one second longer; this is short-sighted vision’s core.

But, why fight for time & for place; when the battling expends both faster?
Why not stop chasing our shadows; & concentrate on their caster?

The fuel of life is often fear & resistance.
Oft disguised as needs & ambition’s insistence.

Whichever one  works & motivates us forwards…
Be it candy covered or painted in swearwords.

The goals that we lurch for, however we arrive…
Evaporate instantly & still, we contrive.

Confecting new goals from the ashes of the last;
We hold on to nothing & hold onto it fast.

We lunge for our freedom, for fairness & for breath.
Yet, silent secret, we know the finish line’s death.

Such fuss over a ring that has not rung.
Breathless for a ding that has never dung.

Why be a toad when you can be a prince?
Why wait as a frog for desperate kiss?

So much worry over love not promised.
Wasted wanting for stories dishonest.

Overthought chance; romantic comedy.
Underwhelmed by fact; therefore tragedy.

Don’t hang your hearts & souls on what could be.
Choose here & now; wake from dreaming & see.