Featured art by Cyril Rolando. Click title image to visit his studio.
Listen to Live Reading
Listen to Suggested Audio
Brian Eno “Fleeting Smile”
The skin is a gown, nothing more
Some way less than the be-all and end-all of all that we are
Nothing short of fancy robe
A hazy husk for lazy bones
The canopy for stately homes
Within these ageing safety zones
Is theatre most bizarre
No cigar for those of us for whom it’s rumoured better safe than sorry
Those mistaking quiet time as five-and-dime for taking inventory
Private eyes launch diatribes on all that lies beneath
Unbeknownst to that which, when reposed, defies belief
Easy becoming uncomfortably numb
At starters orders when under the gun
Waiting for something resembling epiphany
Never advancing beyond our periphery
Stuck in a rut with a twist in our guts as we hunger like gluttons for mutton on hunters’ rotisserie
Budding scholars with buttoned down collars
Impoverished in squalor as we pick away the stitchery
Cash upon delivery appears to be the chicory
Upon which lips be bled of any predilection glittery
Why must it be seen to be believed
That certain souls don’t flatter to emphatically deceive
Suddenly, we distance selves from wealth of sweet relief
Just because we’re too exempt from best attempts to suspend disbelief
The skin is a gown, nothing more
Some way less than the theatre bizarre which exists beneath sheath
Underneath the veil there is a wonderland to plunder
Fail safe namesake to engage with, gauge with wide-eyed wonder
Rules of engagement entail graduation from school of society’s violent persuasion
Taught to believe what our eyes can perceive
With not a thought lent to what’s felt
This is why prose thought provoking composes its unfinished symphony under our pelts
Forces the feeling addressing each sense
Well underspent when denied of all ten
Five across the eyes will offer skyline of reflection
Only when we care to dare to mention
Only when we venture forth with pensive thoughts endorsed no apprehension
Only when we run the course of pent-up nervous tension
Leap each curdled hurdle with intention cruel to girdle
Divorce of corsets binding us to endless dress rehearsal
Nothing short of fancy robes
The hazy husk of lazy bones
Ownership of lonely hearts in houses of correction epidermal
The skin is a gown, nothing more
Some way less than requirement to go it alone
Nothing short of enterprising throne
When not for me, myself and I alone
For underneath the canopy for every stately home
Is safety zone or as it’s better known to those reposed to be-all and end-all of all we truly are
The transcendental theatre most bizarre
Richard Charles Stevens
Keeper of The Crimson Quill
Click here to purchase All of Me Vol. III
Click here to purchase on Amazon
© Copyright: Rivers of Grue™ Shadow Spark Publishing™