END OF PRETEND

Tell me -
that I’ll find dulcet
intoxicating,
as you stare
helpless,
beyond spent tokens
of your secret lover -
depositing low
unsympathetic
sustained gasps,
one upon the next.

“When I am speaking
I wish you wouldn’t.”
Not that you could.

Try –
and I’ll leer a flash
fleeting victory
over this tortured wickedness
we’ve masqueraded as love.
That, which has tinkered my soul
in slights of hand
masking denials torn,
jester, juxtaposing passion
as the car keys from our nightstand
or stubs belonging to a concert
I’ve never attended.

“Now, observe these hands, my dear.”
Now you see ‘em,
now they squeeze,
until you writhe no more
in self inflicted misfortunes.
This blank soul coddles your vacuous heart no further,
except to caress its beat to stillness
resembling that rock of char
slovenly hurled in my direction.

Farewell, those nuptial promises
as loose dangling toes
into forever skinny-dipped Spring
while I make everlasting futile attempts
to pry that erotic senility
from your cold dead lips.

SLOW COAST TO FINALE IN 'A' FLAT

I have nothing left to say…
There, I have articulated the end.
Now, which is fitting tribute,
many years lost to incredulity:
that – which is genuinely complete,
for it is so.

The tangled filaments
of my spinning wheel chaff
their cotton twill, hay and rags
stuffed deep within.
Reclamation into dusty bins
from where I befell
- complete.

The account of my overseer
all resources sheered –
receding and robbed,
greedily vacant.

Lock the wraiths of occasion
lording over my desolate shell.
Lay forbearance,
that devastated hallmark
upon my discontented creed.
For no rebirth stirs the silt of May,
and busying flax caught heavy,
in ambitious grandeurs resigned
instantly,
to decay.

This concave muddle
of predominance and filth
belies that unholy launch,
into renewals brief.
Except once…

…that I pledged my trove
to moldering husks replete
and clotted dizzying fancy
in this empty-headed devotion
built rickety upon the notions
of ceaseless spring;
now disenchanted youth.
Gone,
bitterly, at last
for I have nothing left to say.

INTREPID

In a blaze of heated glory
he parades…
haughty pursuit -
speedy dreams
caught clutch
in a gale force F-5
collision of luminous streaks.

Generating fits in shocks
the remnant after-spark
of impatient toe to heel
back and forth
cross the living room rug.

A flurry of activity
twixt perpendicular struts
raising lint from cushions
breaking exculpatory beads
streaking his defiant brow.

Internal fluster pulse
lubricating the pistons of his mind
revving speedometer
gearshift whirling in place
challenging
each petty
revisited notion
…mere mortality – Bah!

“I am intrepid!”
“I am fearless!”
“I am the master of my domain!”

…now if I could just remember…
where did I put my car keys?

WHENE'ER I ERR

This wavering path
has been silent suffrage
nearly forgotten,
not worth repeating -
It is a mast of gilded folly
affixed to foundering ships,
cast adrift into merciless fogs of daydream.
Thrust crooked, dark and jaggedly swayed
thrown open, laid bare and raw
found dense and smashed
against the craggy looming edges.

One does not ask for this,
but handles it as best one can,
up from the turgid foam,
wrapping bloody-knuckled spite
defiance and stubborn will intertwine
whole gutted remains - gripping flesh,
dug deep in ancient failures.
The mind – a decadent sea sponge
caught in recoiling tentacles
squeezed to near inexistence.

Bedraggled,
the sop of fertile staining algae temptress
licks these torn keels,
jabbed tattered resolve -
reminding with ease
of that simple surrender
beneath the tides,
giving way to the inevitable.

I will not allow her triumph so easily,
though one day she must –
cackling gales at the pains
I held on - begging
some omnipotent force
to sing a mariner’s lullaby -
or unaccomplished welcome.

Hence, whene’er I err
I simply look up into the skies
and find my moral center
staring from that beacon
at the top of the world:
the flood - a distant memory
come crashing
on my spiritual compass.
…and perhaps, somewhere
forgotten bluebirds reign supreme
left quietly
to mingle with the stars.@Nick Zegarac 2006 (all rights reserved).

EASTER PARADE

They came
in the premature vacuum of early dawn,
their licentious crowns
burgeoning thorny accusations.
Their heavy chains of open disdain,
commencing loose cords in sealed regret
to witness the wide-eyed leering spectacle:
lepers of one communal sin.

Placid, their piety mingling
Roman law – hard pressed,
united in one common caste
of happy stone-throwers,
sycophantic wailers,
the weary, the poor,
malnourished enlightenment
made impoverished by these dregs
staked to be cleansed.

He defied their crust and filth
with pierced hands unclenched -
forgiveness running red upon the block,
to annoy today’s commercial daydreams
of the sprightly raison bird
writhing lonely effigies in the sky
above these wavering gaggles
in their sunny bonnets, frills upon it –
kindly cottontails
collecting their Cadbury eggs.

@Nick Zegarac 2006 (all rights reserved).

GOOD MORNING SUN

It began as knotted sheet toil; to turn
away the first warm renderings of Spring
Appalachian dawn
twittering golden beggary -
to taunt my lazy loins
through half filtered slats.
How now, does that slit of puritan light
widen its long-puckering tentacles
across my spread,
razing into the transoms of my soul
capable yet of refocusing on nothing -
yet, remembering it all.

I am exposed,
thrown open upon the bedroom sill
of almost beyond memoirs
where time honored apiece caresses
tickling about my ankle-socks -
the pleasure stretch
dazzling in ever-fresh shawls
upon these sun-bruised cheeks
for those few recaptured hours
spent in virginal bliss.

JAZZ-A-BELLE

In complete social defiance
of her naïve caste,
and rigid moral code,
this masculine silhouette
swivels pastel licorice
hip-to-hip;
her cloche hat cocked just so,
a flapper – no less
pert, than bold.

Her wiry bob,
sits tight and round,
string of glassy pearls
loosely tousled
bouncing up,
then down.

This brazen figment
carefree adorn,
totally unprepared
for Black Monday morn.
Her shapeless shift
passes in cool sway
and breezy strut,
chasing every mongrel
to find her mutt.

That endless vacuum
where a woman’s heart should lay
bass-tempo keeping fast,
clickety-clack shimmy unsurpassed.
Devil’s eye and empty slate
waiting for hat check promises-
one chit,
some chat,
vapid plaything,
speakeasy alley cat.

Just in time, disposable waif,
plotting second to moment,
in manic Charleston steps,
toe-to-toe
as her distraught lover leaps
from a fifth story window.

FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK

Let us be clear before proceeding:
Keats is God.
Tennyson: a saint.
James Hilton - masterful pulp.
Stephen King,
cheap thrills.
…but Jackie Collins will always be toilet paper.

Write!
Manipulate circumstances
made uncommon to life,
yet vaguely teaching a lesson.
Do not shock –
but rediscover the shocking
in the everyday.
Insincerity in living
permissible -
carry over into prose,
inexcusable.

Bleed freely,
if not from your soul
then tender vestiges,
understanding derived from the human heart.
It yearns for legacy
even before a single word is penned.
Many tears are shed
when quill to parchment
unmasks self-reflections -
processed by imagination,
undiscovered in process writing.

Forgo the pen for crayon when perplexed,
by epic embarkations,
or solid last act finales.
Absence of experience
derives its sprightly ember domain
from childhood fancies.

At last, the thing,
that misshapen tale,
cries out for representation.
Technically, an art –
artistically – a craft,
…but most authors will concur
that any resemblance
between manuscripts submitted
and final drafts approved
is purely coincidental.

UNSAID

A lie, in secret, blooms today
atop the casket of my youth.
Sealed within this darkened vacuum
of divine permanence and a heavy lid
my nimble thoughts seem much tighter
than these impatient feet
fidgeting above my earth.

Onward Christian soldiers,
into Taps -
the forlorn harbinger cast shallow
into deeply inspired patriotic dirt.

Does someone pray?
How no one weeps,
though all keep vigilant hush.

I lie in still, embalmed repose,
elegant, stiff in military clothes
and dream upon no particular thought,
as pallbearers of my departed past -
desired, no more
yet loved, no less…
eternal prisoner
to each wandering thought,
and vacuous consoling distress.

No tangible trace, I leave behind
my conscience free, though body tied
to what might have been
with enforced obligations
abandoned, unfulfilled – and yet…
if only I had incurred enough strength
to have changed my will.

TRACK #9

In days of old,
before the war,
I fantasized in ticket stubs,
plotting alpine excursions ‘cross Austria -
the thin leather plate of my shoe
grazing dense, craggy terrain
on a walking tour
while snowy-frosted peaks
glinted by foreign moonlight.

I was young, you see,
and optimistically pixilated
in miraculous-blind naiveté kisses
to Baden Baden and Berlin divine,
its renaissance menschen
and the gemutlick fraulein
awaiting my return on track #9.

The crisp apple of her cheeks singed
rosy by the hiss and coo off engine steam
mind - a crooked mix of Shelley and Hegel,
heart, unfettered by prejudices yet to come.
Her sudden appearance, was the milky white center
of virgin chocolate, pliable -
apart from the passing parade.

We chose to stroke our Russian vodkas
and eavesdrop Strauss by candlelight…
each sway and pulsation, mood and tempo
imprinting sonnets
the tussle of an evaporating existence
laid cold now and buried –
within hollow historical records
kept brittle, yet warm
in the prickly heated embers of my brain.

I cannot bear to dream on that pillow –
mein Liebling,
meine Liebe, mein Leben, meine atmenseele
straining that fragile haunted melody
blotting out the anschluss
though not its tinderbox memoirs
sealed chambers,
my forgotten youth.

Hence, when I imagine you now,
I dream inside a postcard Europe,
that frosty-alive November mist
poised natural on some ancient station platform,
properly aged before the war,
or in treasured glimpses…
and Stuttgart rolling past my window sill.

STORM WARNING

The cotton balls are gathering,
antiseptic velvet wisps,
spun beads of pearl-like sugar
dot clear blue skies
in ancient stranded mist.

Their gossamer fingers interlock,
a rummage sale of knotted fluff.
Pastry flakes, ethereal gauze.
One veil-like cluster, then splits in two,
raising winds that weave a bridal halo,
into virgin blankets, ghostly braids.

They dab and sprinkle,
each playful swirl bumping into the next,
until angelic bowers curtsy to the earth,
twilling cotton ball rain in sticky dew,
and summer’s drape spreads anew.

THE UNDERDOG'S GRINDSTONE

I cannot compete,
in this world of finite possibility,
where one spurned velvet tongue
infects the throat of my neighbor
with wrongful speculation.

I cannot,
unjustly, to trespass
on fondling gossip
crooked fingers,
hoarding each thought
in miserly disease.

I must not
if the winner
entitled to nothing,
take all,
masters deception
basks in bilious limelight,
thick as envy.

So here I remain,
a prisoner to loneliness,
one utter complete failure
of my own displaced convictions.
Forgotten and careworn,
weighted millstone about my neck,
a pillaged reminder
to that barrier reef of unfettered playtime,
embattled last bastion
of hopeless innocence bound
to a world thieving over
crusts of maggot-filled bread.