A blanket of salt-laced fatigue.
Nature,
Old, jaded and potbellied,
Smirks at a millionth dying spin of the earth
In dusk.

A crisp autumn leaf swims in tawny geriatry,
And lethargically, from its parent
detaches;
A snarling oak bursting with caterpillar secrets-
And cascades, one with the scorching air,
toward the warm, perfumed blades of audacious grass below,
Their premolars bared
to swallow foot, and leaf, and rejected poetry,
Whole.

Ninety paver blocks are inundated by Carefree toddler footfalls;
Cratering
The air with bare resonance,
As impolite insunuations of autotune
Against a classical performance.

Long-disowned, static lagoons of formality still linger,
As the whiff of a forsaken lover;
And oversat, underslept, liquiefied people
Saunter wearily victorious
from work;
Bags in hand rivalling bags under eyes,
Teasing car perfume off their ties,
But wafting far heavily
A stench of coffee-crisp
lies.

Mothers, demurely seeking respite,
Reeking of slight and drab, household rite;
Atop the solid, running Nile of marble
all around a darkening garden,
Perch, and search for another kin,
To double, and halve their plight.

'Tis soon night.
And the puppets alight
Into the routine comfort of their household,
To retire,
Or quietly partake in
desire.

Heaven knows, and laughs at the fact
That while Day is a retreat from inward voices,
And Night, a dirt track off society;
Dusk,
is a flourishing conclusion
To the pantomime
of life.

For between the beaten brows of afternoon,
And the aluminium armor of the moon,

Between a saccharine-oozing dawn and a venomous midnight forlorn,

Between a kickstarting twirl and a concluding swoon;
And bodily odour and car perfume,

Smack upon that moted, muted frame of dusk-

Do formality and worry,
Friend and adversary,
Liberty and drudgery,

inevitably
marry.

~•■•~

A/N- Dusk and dawn. Clever seams in the ostensibly unblemished fabric of society. Everyone works so hard to maintain a socially acceptable fibre. And yet, out on their morning jogs or evening shuffles, they create a tear just large enough for an interested observer to gain access into who they really are.

Thought I'd revisit near-free verse after my marriage with meter. Cheers!