95: Gentleman

In the mist of dimming theatre lights
and frozen silent atmosphere,
the last few seconds drift away-
The doors are shut
sealed, airtight.

A figure creeps along onstage
with whining strings of violins.
Timpany rolls below our feet;
a tragic symphony. We ought to take
advantage of such moments but
the time strikes on and forward;
Faint chills in the air unnoticed,
the distant sting of old perfume and
Parisian soap imported.

The seat of velvet - red, demure,
The seat of all life's pleasures -
Sits empty tonight amongst the crowd,
One seat of two-thousand and twenty.
No one asks, for it's not in their place,
avoiding things that should be left to
ghostly January winds and the death of February.

There tonight, an old soul sits, unperturbed by heavenly theatre hymns.

94: The Scandal

It whispers once and lonesomely;
this secret on the rocks
has never seemed so evil, uninspired,
another one caught amidst the land of the fire.
Coverage shifts the eye's mind of focus,
never so true as unmarked sand
while the waves of doom crash through and through
and through the raw and pebbled land.

Push him out and parade the streets
with signs of lies, debauchery;
Cronies march alongside, swift,
trucks speeding by,
winds make the rush,
the killer results of the modern technique.

Out here, nobody listens
in the clammy cool of pine-tree nights,
The only ones who stay alive
are those in hiding,
we avert eyes.

The man lies down along the earth,
thick of scent and dampened soil.
Battlecries and demons charge
from yards away... he hears them.
Rifles cocked-
Voices raised-
Eyes inflamed-
Fueled rage-

Burying his face into the ground
as the final sense of escapism,
Lungs filling up with the land's dirt
just like what they deserved of him.