Aging Orpheus
© Surazeus
2012 05 31
Aging Orpheus in slick pin-stripe suit
arrives late at corporate meeting of minds.
"Stumbled this morning into cracked glass door
of perfect sensibility on my way
to foul bathroom where advertising gurus
were brain-storming ways to sell plastic toys
manufactured in China by young girls
escaped from farms who wear green uniforms
and white face masks to prevent angel breath
from escaping, though blind goddess of justice
teeters on balanced edge of sloping roof,
if merry elves dance and welcome old man
holding red bag who steals your memories."
Everybody stops and stares at his face,
wrinkled like half-torn plastic wrapper, pink
and yellow-spotted skin covering wood mask
he bought last year on vacation to Bali,
but no one wants to unravel tangled words
so they turn back to green computer screens
and type sales figure numbers in spreadsheets
to calculate spirit of the times, lost
before third world war erupted at crash
of chivalry in second civil war
between college students who occupy
city parks and bankers who clutch black cables
that link a million computers in web
of illusions, or we ride unicorns.
Vice President Ophelia whispers loud
to Dorothy and Alice sipping tea.
"He thinks he is Orpheus, singing spells
that wake dead souls to aching hope of lust,
but dancing girls, whose eyes blaze bright with love,
reassemble his broken soul from shards
of shattered self-esteem and patch his ego
from puzzle pieces of cathedral windows
to hide raw feelings safe behind glass mask
which will reveal his dreams to all who watch
poems unreeling from his projector eyes
and beam prophetic visions on high wall
we built to protect sacred paradise
but instead we slave in prison of greed,
so now he sings spells that no one can hear."
© Surazeus
2012 05 31
Aging Orpheus in slick pin-stripe suit
arrives late at corporate meeting of minds.
"Stumbled this morning into cracked glass door
of perfect sensibility on my way
to foul bathroom where advertising gurus
were brain-storming ways to sell plastic toys
manufactured in China by young girls
escaped from farms who wear green uniforms
and white face masks to prevent angel breath
from escaping, though blind goddess of justice
teeters on balanced edge of sloping roof,
if merry elves dance and welcome old man
holding red bag who steals your memories."
Everybody stops and stares at his face,
wrinkled like half-torn plastic wrapper, pink
and yellow-spotted skin covering wood mask
he bought last year on vacation to Bali,
but no one wants to unravel tangled words
so they turn back to green computer screens
and type sales figure numbers in spreadsheets
to calculate spirit of the times, lost
before third world war erupted at crash
of chivalry in second civil war
between college students who occupy
city parks and bankers who clutch black cables
that link a million computers in web
of illusions, or we ride unicorns.
Vice President Ophelia whispers loud
to Dorothy and Alice sipping tea.
"He thinks he is Orpheus, singing spells
that wake dead souls to aching hope of lust,
but dancing girls, whose eyes blaze bright with love,
reassemble his broken soul from shards
of shattered self-esteem and patch his ego
from puzzle pieces of cathedral windows
to hide raw feelings safe behind glass mask
which will reveal his dreams to all who watch
poems unreeling from his projector eyes
and beam prophetic visions on high wall
we built to protect sacred paradise
but instead we slave in prison of greed,
so now he sings spells that no one can hear."
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