Phoebus Is Folksy Clown

Phoebus Is Folksy Clown
© Surazeus
2026 03 19

Because each repeated fall of the sun 
feels so much like the final end of time, 
I growl with animal passion in fun 
at sweet enchantment of the breeze-kissed chime 
when I lounge in ruins of Carthage town 
to confess my Phoebus is folksy clown. 

Though my days eat away eternity, 
my hours have no need to pardon their loss 
for I have joined Jester Fraternity 
that Lucilius presides as first boss 
since Juvenalis taught me how to praise 
Lucifer with mask of the golden glaze. 

I still wring my bread from war-bloodied stones 
and fence my garden with bones of the dead 
whose tales I carve with runes on dragon bones 
till clever Athenus springs from my head, 
so I pluck fruit that grows from tree of light 
my ancestor planted in moonless night. 

Seed of the Serpent beams inside my heart 
light of salvation on wild ocean shore 
where I build glass house on rock of Astarte, 
star goddess who teaches me timeless lore 
so I construct boats and tend fields of wheat, 
yet sing with nightingale and parakeet. 

I think it strange that when I kiss the skull 
of Pluto on computer screen of fate, 
I learn no secret of the laughing bull 
who feeds my spirit to the fires of fame 
till serpents resurrect my ghost to life 
when I drown attempting to save my wife. 

Olympus is my home Death cannot bomb 
for gleaming dome of mirror-flashing masks 
protects my family in vast crystal tomb 
where miracles are kept safe in wine flasks 
that leave me blind to virtue of weird truth 
encoded in riddles by our dream sleuth. 

Heartbroken by secret I never share, 
that Lethe oozes from my brittle tongue, 
I meet Cynthia on the heavenly stair 
to give her puzzle from which angels spring, 
so we stroll on the apple-sweetened shore 
past fruitful garden to the grocery store. 

Though honest Herakles struts on world stage 
to brag the Roman Empire still stands strong, 
I ask strange phantoms of conceptual rage 
if they will come when cathedral bells ring, 
but Charon waits on shore of River Styx 
while Dionysus teaches me his tricks.