Charon Chorus 2013 Version Poem by Jonathan ROBIN

Ghost of Christmas present, past or
future perfect spun or spurned,
shepherd, wolf in pastor's pasture,
mess is earned, world less concerned.
Eons long or echo fleeting,
naught completing, mocking glass,
mirage little else repeating besides
'I thought I thought I passed! '

Whether old one passes over,
young unsung, berth premature,
guilt gilt gifted four leaf clover,
or homeless, wan, naught can endure.
Shirk's blood, pain, sorrow, find dread reaper
works stalks death-wards, talks stacked cards,
slight consolation for bed weeper
a-wake in somber sable shards.

Polished pebble tide toned, rounded,
priceless gem, physique homespun,
each as sand ends, bright dreams grounded
in oblivion undone.
Win or lose, love shared, ignored or
left to shrivel by the way,
two sides of one coin, ring Mordor
or for Frodo, naught may stay.

Had Mount doom not gobbled Gollum
would eye rove omnipotent?
would there have been some 5th column
on new liberation pent?
Quantum physics, 'Slider' series,
state 'n' states can co-exist,
if there's truth in dybbuk theories
as many parallels persist.

Alternative event horizons
fact or fiction find the same,
ferry floats with Charon's eyes on
boating souls without a name.
Mozart notes communal buried
welcomed heedless - magic flute
could not spare from journey ferried
through the 'haunts of hern and coot'

Whether bright illusion shatters, big head shed when will walks small,
ermine, mink, stink patchwork tatters, . matters little if at all.

Laments unheeded, red rims beaded
with emotions on the fly,
strangers never know they needed,
nor regrets, nor passing sigh.
What waste motives honed for getting,
ever chasing unchaste aim,
last laugh's left with time, forgetting
fame's flame, game's name, wild or tame.

Hermit's tower, houri's bower
for brief hour flower, fail,
fatter thinner, loser winner,
placed sole on soul's scale bewail
breath deleted, uncompleted
or fulfilled in narrow scope
are forgotten gains ill-gotten,
unbegotten seem, steam hope.

Whether mortal masses money,
syphons honey from the hive,
whether disposition sunny,
funny bunny, sad, all strive,
fall is fleeting, call competing,
opt-out, know in turn sobs' sighs,
cut-throat cheating, spouse deceiting,
one by one feel throbs' demise.

Day night follows, night day hollows each urned, teach Time won't play ball,
if Apollo, Pluto, swallows, matters little if at all.

Time and place trace unimportant, social standing, gypsy van,
knock-kneed yellow liver, giver, false forgiver, pale or tan,
open hearted, closed-shop smart id, ancient geneology,
orphan cast-off, Leo, Libra, . Virgo, Pisces, culled from tree.
Wishy-washy, busy-body, helter-skelter grave conveyed,
Luxury or gift-shop shoddy, willy-nilly from parade
ghosts go, host's talk show deprogrammed, volunteers rise from the ranks,
till plank, Davy Jones awaiting damned. Tingling spines, scorned thanks, warned tanks.

Namby-pamby, merchant magnate patriot or terrorist,
evangelical, apostate, queue on stream, doomed, dreams dismissed.
Watch all line up rough unready, pay for final ferry ride,
hale and hearty, frail unsteady, time will bury. Charon, guide,
steers unveering out of hearing she who cried and he who'd stall,
dearth of cheering, rebirth clearing, none are summoned by recall.

Mad as hatters, silver platters, wrinkled crone prone, belle of ball,
prey greed batters, prayer bead shatters, matters little if at all.

All ends equal, clock recording second thoughts docked, time-lock knocked,
self-centeredness proves vain, affording little leeway when boat's rocked.
Palm tree dates' anticipation appetites encourage though
few know what matters, grief, elation sound the same when fast moves slow.

Ruthless raptors rampant running through Createous countryside
packs aren't facts, film fiction stunning, few skeletal claws abide.
Park Jurassic may seem classic only amber flies remain,
cage thoracic, plankton plastic, seabed solid can't complain.

Friendly fire or hostile missile, error prone drone, terror wrist,
margin call when market tumbles, earthquake rumbles farewell kiss.
Strife life haunted, illness gaunted, Death undaunted rides afield,
Time cares nor jot nor tittle, wit will lot meet, plots defeat, soul yield.

Rebels routed, tyrants clouted, sidereal void's photonic sprawl,
lost species sprouted, dogmas doubted, matters little if at all.

Forty years of desert sojourn, dungeon dank or thankless task
end alike for saint and sinner, rake fake, winner, takes to task.
Health undoctored, wealth untaxed or kiss as kismet thanks luck's stars,
equal tie when ties are sundered, fickle Fate appeal deal bars.

Wedding banns bells ring at altar hands wring sooner, later, washed
away by doomsday naught may alter, nipped in bud, ambitions squashed.
Story told, tale unrecorded, archive access, desert bloom,
each reflects each, dust rewarded, leach teaches blood's recycling doom.

Template telomeres with aging evolution's leaps ensures,
one mutation disengaging from another: naught endures.
Sickles sharp harp strings soon sunder, angels fall from grace and light,
meek or cheeky share down under lost to memories once bright.

High and mighty host unpleasant, guest of unguessed worth, to earth
soon consigned, resigned, peer, peasant give redemption widest girth.
Promise kept, or wept forgotten, dreams, delusions commonplace,
high priorities proved rotten soon debunked, synch sunk untraced.

Whether lapping wave band foam bath, thunder clap, tsunami tall,
weather warm, storm, glacier calf, matters little if at all.

Singularity advances, urge surge merge acceleration,
compromise prized dogmas, chances purged from sojourn's holding station.
Generation gaps, increasing, hint at anthropophomorphosis:
Lip service landslip slide's self-greasing, strange change looms, boom's tomb's farewell kiss.

Sapiens on cusp Aquarian out of kilter falters, flails
as regimes totalitarian totter when fail-safe wickets, bales,
fly asunder, stumped go under, soon submerged by fly-by ball,
Everest beneath earth's ocean was sea-bead once, now fossils call
the tune five thousand feet from seabed turned turtle by tectonic plates,
who feared to look behind, ahead, equal prove scaled by Ma'at's weights.

Human Rights light lantern calling generations to reform,
one step forwards, two back falling, face recurrent 'perfect storm'.
Brave New World shall self extinguish, exploitation seems apt term,
politicians won't relinquish oversight of stem cell, sperm.

End result: most good intentions role reversed by fear and greed
pave Hell's road, dispel dissensions, souls dispersed can scarce succeed.
Information access doubles each decade but budget cuts
fragilise fair freedoms, stubble, weeds, what once seemed well plowed ruts.

Ignorance or understanding tapping history on call,
lightning, thunder, truth or blunder matters little if at all.

No explanation offers simple panacea for man's ills
Wimpled dimple, puss and pimple can't steer clear of bitter pills
Few learn truth from joys, grief, yearn cloys, second thoughts soon damn Man's years
in despond's vale clever ploys fall on unreceptive ears.

Second chance, time travel star-gate wormhole soul revival wheel,
spins hearsay saga compensate for lights soon blighted lies conceal.
Survival is mental delusion, rival theses sefer sealed,
intellectual illusions, Lethe's sentence unrepealed.

Spy inherent contradictions in between ways gleaned means stretched,
double binds recycle ball-games till dread reaper soul has fetched.
Sleepy head abed, bird early, worms will feed with curtain call
bowed out, cowed dread, hair straight, curly crowd shunned coffins cover shawl.

Tears, cheers mingle hearse horse jingle on last journey six feet deep,
token shingle intermingles with worm disturbing sacred sleep.
Yet sleep Earth must as groups galactic meet supernova destiny
fire or ice, earthquake climactic, flood submerging scrutiny.

Atomic half-life cannot counter snowball earth, lost wherewithal,
comet, asteroid encounter, matters little if at all.

From enjoyment and employment ant and giant trapped within
time-trap gin from first sigh last cry seek to understand life's spin:
quest request for why and wherefore hovers moth-like facing fame,
stymied questions sink, and therefore few call for/to true go[o]d name.

In a blinking thinking inking from life's calendar is torn,
one falls, thousands rush, Fate, winking, re-intones rites trite, well-worn.
Hive cells, hexagon alignment, queens from workers separate,
all from solit'ry confinement soon released must lie in state.

At weathered monument engravings Time jeers, grime sneers, climb hastes fall,
joyless jaded, constant cravings, lust's treat dust meets, swallows all.
Seldom sense in destination is revealed, within the Way
purpose lies peregrination in, of, through itself holds sway.

Gnomes anonymous departed concomitant foes withal
lost in limbo lie uncharted, matters little if at all.

Feelings, double-dealing spieling, weighed against fate's feather, fail,
healing, trouble, celestial ceilings swept by change's whirlwind gale.
Fauna, flora, extant for a wink fuss, fall extinct, beyond Time's pale,
impassive sexton, Charon porous mortals mops, mocks greed for grail.

Phantom pantomime enacted through dimensions none can count
in black hole consumed, compacted, to molehill melts the highest mount.
Here today and gone tomorrow foregone conclusion for grief, glad,
leave leaf laughter, shore leave sorrow, income. Outcome? naught to add.

From confusion into fusion tracks once concrete turn to slime,
ends, means, merge, can't draw conclusion coherent through unnumbered time.
Through apparent convolution evolution's 'upwards climb'
boomerangs, causal revolution cancels out all 'worth a dime'.

Whether generations flourished, shared, bore brunt of grunt or gall,
prospered hale, failed, wailed ill-nourished, fate trumps all who'd last date stall.
High and might blown to Blighty staid or flighty culled on call,
second thoughts or wishful thinking, matters little if at all.

Top of pops or relegation, winning streak, weak gamble lost,
fresh life quest request negation meets sans suite, whate'er the cost.
What of passion? What of pain vain unrecorded, unconceived?
shadow-shapes we wander, chain train shatters soon with what achieved?

Old souls flock from time-lock fleeing, putting up resistance fierce,
Young well-hung, the waif wraith being, Charon's mystery none pierce.
Coin praise each pays forlorn. Dis preying displays beneath scythed daisies shorn
tithed remains of phrases, baying tunes to moons from faiths stillborn.

Threadbare pauper lacking stitch or rich endowed with silver spoon
share communal grave, can't pitch for more days for play's over soon.
Stanzas cease, release pure, grimy, tocsin tolls for star's eclipse,
who heeds deeds when fungus slimy peerless rose's petals strips.

Charon's charges chant in chorus
'auld lang syne' before corpse fall,
where lie Quetzalcoatl, Horus? .
Little matters, tall lies small.