Sideways

To note the nature of his jests
created coaxing choirs
of lively plaudits taking bets
his reason had expired.

'Tis true the light does shine profane
in his analogies,
alone among the strengthened strains
of strife's frivolity.

He sang with them and laughed and danced,
forsaking night and day,
another pint times two plus three,
his trance became less fey.

I listened, bent my strict routine,
considered this new wave;
intent on masquerading as
a painter's bristled grave.

Striking patterns built in times,
unheralded, divine.
Sitting in the background of
his daily crackling grind.

Reality has swerved he'd say,
outside your patterned plights;
stilted in a shimmering
disjointed term's delight.

Real time exists, the present's here,
indulge, enjoy your gift.
It's gently swathed in scarlet silk,
a gallant stymied rift.

Your time to know, a swift stone's throw
to Philly, Van, L.A.
Be wise, contrive, advise, belie
a gliding gilded sway.

For him, he'd written twice-two fold
a taut pulsating dream,
while cuddling his torn page within
a pliant fledgling scene.

A table clad in snow and light,
a picnic, lunchtime, rest.
To pass through this, discover that,
sweet pleasant shifts detect.

A plot with them, with them contend,
contend all you will know.
Attach to it a liaison
that plans to play a show.

He never let his show be shone,
whatever it had been.
They found him in a river's bed,
enveloped by the stream.

His book I snatched and clasped and read
at twinkling twilight's pace.
And learned the sublime subtle joy
of this man's ludic grace.

You critique him, yes, what did he till
but narcissistic rants?
Entwined in abstruse piquant prose,
surfeited youthful grants.

But as I read I came to know
his writing catered well,
to poignant, gripping, swirling points
of life's enraptured swell.

That was it a starling sits
upon the brow and pecks.
To dream, to write, to pass, contrite,
a blossom in the specs.