Tales from the Punchbowl
Flowing black ink on the page, writing scrawled,
Stories of loss are intensely installed,
Visions of blackness and fate gone awry—
Memories spill from mine eye…
Characters dreary and characters gaunt,
Anecdote replays that inwardly haunt,
Manifold memories crazily styl’d,
Held in the heart of this child.
Knowledge of sinfulness, knowledge of crime,
Craven depravity almost sublime,
Murders of yesteryear, ritual blood,
Cover the page like a flood.
Lusty adulterers, larceners too,
Gathered together and brought into view,
Tales from the punchbowl of life where we drown,
Sporting an ever-wry frown.
Egos prodigiously flaunted in time,
Flaring like comets — brave men in their prime,
Wending their way through this land of decay,
Keeping their conscience at bay.
Mad serendipity garnered in sips,
Brought from the punchbowl as sanity slips,
Lurching in dizziness, mad from the drink,
Barrelling over the brink.
Such striking feebleness, prurience too,
Played on the stage standing here in my view,
Players and actors assailing my ears,
Here, as I cling to my fears.
Hoping for betterment, money and fame,
Any occasion to further one’s name,
Crushing adversaries, taking to crime,
Singing a self-centered rhyme.
Mockery launched from the lips like a spear,
Upsetting epithets made with a sneer,
Jaded perspectives that brand like a rod,
Phrases that injure and prod.
Criminal actions that center on drugs,
Good men degraded and morphed into thugs,
Lost in a snow cone of storming dismay,
Wasted — to dodge the affray.
People in weariness, bullied from hope,
Antidepressants in order to cope,
Chemical comfort bumped into the blood,
Floundering here in the mud.
Feelings straight jacketed, bursting anon,
Violence and vitriol blaze like the sun,
Finding revenge for the hurt of the past,
Reeling from being downcast.
Here as I write with my hands in a sweat,
Stating the peril I cannot forget,
Yearning for healing and hope in some guise,
Wiping the tears from my eyes.
But over and over — the tumble to hell,
Sulphurous blazing I’m hopeless to quell,
Drunk on the punch that spills onto my tongue,
Bitter-sweet medodies sung…
ADL
adamdaniel 