24/7 Poem by Francis Santaquilani

will the sun ever set?
then nightlights will burn
like the sun,
the myriad stimuli are suns as well,
they never set.
occasional non-events flare up
then are quickly snuffed out by the d.d.c.p.
(the department of disapointment and
contemplation prevention) .
elephant portions of all things entertaining
rumble along 24/7.
streams and streams of non-sequiturs,
constant refreshment, big bites, big gulps,
and the interminable beat booms from nowhere.
memories suffocated, songbirds silenced.
the true sun, a perfect orange,
the color and the fruit,
sits on the edge of a slate colored tabletop,
self-peeling, tossing its skin
into the river.
waves move it along,
like an assembly line.
a procession of bobbing orange peels
falls just short of the shore.
in the shrinking and tarnished blue,
dodging rapidly gathering clouds,
the moon, a ghost of a ghost,
looks west, sulking, doomed.
if not clouds this time, then
it would be the rays of all the other suns.
a festival erupts and slithers,
encircling then strangling, like a snake,
a once great and now ghastly gazebo,
sitting like a gigantic skull
on patchy grass and dirt.
bald and bleached, splintered and blistering
from the rays of all the suns.
fly eyes and spider eyes peer out
through collapsed latice work at its base.
would be dancers and singers
leap onto wide tree stumps and monuments,
give impromptu performances, oblivious of,
and in full view, of mute birds
and the spirits
of great shade trees and heroes.