seven beats while the metronome joked

You know the clock's not real

but still you ache its ticking

tricked to notice movement

when it is only painted still.

While a skull grins in icy clouds

leaves flip silver to wait for rain

if that's when low you look to see

the pink globe at sunset swollen,

ersatz precursor to a steady diet

of dry brown acorns easily plinked

and eventually served as charcoal

despite the awkward faux pas style

of clasping with fingerless gloves.

Concrete angels bow to the azure half-shell,

her dry lips foaming a pink V for wanting

on a granite stand trimmed green for sorrow,

after a limousine chase for the widow in black silk

and a rural hearse with no juice run down fresh

to a moist entrance dug from angled mounds.

A bebop version of circumstantial pomp

causes greedy tears to mark this turf

with clinging spray cleaved to flesh,

requiem high-notes by a monkey sung

hirsute y muy simpatico y mas,

the girl in plaid is walking beside

deep set eyes and squeaky wheels

under the rising limbs of linden:

it is not gold but cork that floats

safely lined for carriages of loss.

A monologue of normality

from a desiccated carcass

that simply loves the disco,

the soutane above the fray

if the legs had feet instead of glide

by the sacred sign disguised.

Under this sad hymn of high summer

(crickets strumming rhythm

led by cicadas syncopate)

only plain birds sit the sizzling wire,

the dotage that never blinked downhill

rolls from neon crying time's suspense,

the frozen bauble to never flash again.

For something to believe in pink

the pearly globe grows up in size

we only die each time we notice.