Arnie Hicks

simplistic to the point of incomprehensible,
love lingers on the lips and in the heart -
seemingly for but the briefest of moments,
while ever cavorting on the brink of eternity.
...

subsequent to reflection
and after considerable self-recrimination
i have graciously forgiven myself any past transgressions -
the voluntarily imposed veil of deceit
...

radiant lady of mystery, all is as it should be -
I am your enigma, as you are mine;
lucky be divinity's angels to embrace you as their own.
...

theirs a well conducted symphony of emotional inertia,
measured out in perfect synchronization;
the dance of two hearts poised in harmony,
secure in the knowledge of what the next movement brings.
...

much as other men before me
i'd heard my share of fantasies and fairy tales
but ere i gazed upon her lyrical countenance
i had not known enchantment of the heart
...

had i but known in time,
what sorrow from love doth spring:
what torment the soul be made to endure
in the the name of that capricious maiden:
...

a life of addiction
one after another after another
sex tobacco alcohol drugs
an appetite without limits
...

the pensive juxtaposition of these unbidden insights -
surreal glimpses into the evolution of what my world could become -
and the intense reality of the concrete
(yet even still malleable) here and now,
...

teenage wasteland/last chance texaco
..... ghost towns along the highway

voices of the voiceless/high on rebellion
...

only in the lucidity of madness,
anchored deep in the exquisite screams of melancholy,
was the birth of my humanity made possible.
...

the torture of heretics
and the burning of witches -
all bets are off on the next episode.
...

in the heart of earth's darkness,
deep within its impenetrable silence,
flow the endless tears of countless souls -
an admonition of devouring faith in misplaced things.
...

another absurd foster child of misgivings and doubt,
i sit in awe and listen
as the disillusioned angels of mercy cower and weep.
with fatal resistance to life in this world -
...

the bonds of intimacy,
the alpha and the omega of man's perpetual struggle for identity,
suffer not the false sentiments of imagined lock and key
(adolescent belief that mercenary romance
...

i knew you once long ago
and everything about you was poetry
the way you flowed like a mystery
that begged no solution
...

astride the gray pavement
where there is no black and white
only a vague sense of once belonging
i walk the shadow world
...

melancholy madness and the spark of creation;
another day to wallow in the stench
and marvel at man's indifference.
between thought and action lies the path to temptation;
...

apropos the infusion of such calculated felicities
as becomes the prodigy of innate grace,
her demure and reticent countenance
might be seen as an easily pardonable liberty.
...

what strength we find
in the determination of man!

failure manifest
...

precariously poised on the bridge to comprehension,
there rests a tenuous truce, of sorts,
between the accepted world of visibility and the land of shadow;
one the elemental senses would betray the conditioned mind
...