Cyrus Wentletrap, Esq.

1

Autumn is my season,
Slow gentle drift into oblivion,
Deciduous humanity’s fall.
Life slips into suspended animation,
Unchained, free to dream,
At play in the all-creative void.
Heaviness turns to lightness,
Separation’s gift;
And perhaps when we
Are humbled entirely
The skies will yield their secret.

2

November empties a bucket of ice water over me!
Not enough to wake me up,though.

3

We are the television people,
Our carnival masks made to tease and enchant.
We live out there, in here, under every stone,
Oracles with nothing to say.
Stop and watch our travelling show,
And become like us,
Immaculate, unreal.

4

This is the family, nest of love and anger,
Tyrant’s throne and rebel’s dynamite.

5

Night is my friend. I want to do nothing
But smoke cigars and stare at the moon.

6

Supernal tenderness, humanity from heart to heart!
Distant though you are, I feel you close by,-
Too easily I forget,
But then something small and precious
Reawakens my life...

7

Impotent, like a consonant without a vowel,
I dream of completion
And serenade the moon with lavish ditties.
Will it all make sense in the end?
Will all the clues fit together,
All the problems be resolved?
Until, then, I watch the mouse on his wheel,
And read about the Aztecs, the Incas, the Mayas...

8

Childhood:-romp of hobby horses and cautionary tales!
Goblin festival on the hilltop!

9

I clasp my head in my hands,
Reassured by its warmth and strength,
Palping the skull with exploratory wonder.
My fingers wander over my body, researching,
Gathering information on reality,
Putting Osiris back together.

10

Vain and captious critics, maliciously cavilling,
What suns have you ignited, what worlds have you borne?

11

Incipient memory, first twinge of toothache,
Ouija board spelling out the dead...
The days are like herds of buffalo
Stampeding over the clifftop...

12

Today hangs
Like the winning conker
On its string.

13

When dark occasions seize me, and I cry
To heaven for succour, and none comes,
I burrow down with badgers, my kin,
Shaking my head at rumours from above.

14

Laugh, laugh, at the brink of horror,
Teetering, halfcrazed,
Cornered by the world.
Homo sapiens, making chimpanzee faces,
You are here and only here!

15

Here am I, not a human being, but a writer,
Insatiable hermaphrodite,
Consuming the world with arrogant voracity,
Humbled by nothing, not even death.

Morbid idealist, guilty sinner,
Torn between the Cross and the Swastika,
Do you really think that words might save you?