Bedtime Stories Poem by Norman F. Santos

Once upon a time.
A picturesque blur of line
An etude cradling every night
Laced in the line of silver light
When will your hope arrive
Without the inflection of lie?
What periphery do you behold?
Yonder idyllic nights unfold
In dreams basking in marigold
And scathe veracity sneers untold
Once upon an incidence,
Once upon an ignorance,
Once in a loop of ambivalence;
A tale exuding such complacence.

Salvation. Redemption.
Darling tales of grand illusion
Fold your arms, shut your eyes in peace
Sleep in the serenity you find in bliss
Oblivion is so abused
Oblivion is so misused
Like a sleepless child praying
Fingers interlacing, faith toppling
Clasped tightly in a gnarl too dearly
A riddle you pray too generously
Bury it all in a garden below
Recoiled in the burl of a fanaticism’s bellow
Amplified in the spring blossoming
Marigolds in a night of flustering

Into forever.
Impasse this sun kissed river
We glide down like boats
Vessels fervently buoyed
By such expectations
Sealed in a tale’s narration
Of encrusted lies and promised bliss
Enthralled in a good night kiss
When the crown of sun dawns
Allow the light to take throne
Paving away a mystic dream
In the frothing glacial streams
The end lost in an oblivion
Forever told in a delusion.