Only she is aware of its particular significance in her life as she carefully

Reaches out to hold it between her two hands. The intense beauty forever

Captures her attention and never fails to captivate

Her heart. With hesitant fingers, she caresses it gently, marveling at its

Intricate petals, surprisingly strong to the touch, for at first glance, they appear

Delicate… this exquisite flower… a subtle expression of the woman she strives to be.

(A satiric analogy about literary egoism)

“I have groped across this muddle long enough!
It has become quite onerous, and there are far too
Many aspirants digging wells in salt mines looking
For diamonds – wannabes slobbering with hilarity
After discovering that “screw you too” is a rhyme.”

“Didn’t mommy ever tell you that you were boring
And pedantic
And arrogant
And conceited
And condescending …
A pseudo-intellectual writer without discipline?”

“And didn’t daddy ever tell you that somehow you’d
Perfected the donnish stereotype to dupe the unwary
Into believing that you were something other than just
Another crash test dummy displaying poetic erudition?”

“OK … you got me …
So I’ll ask you again …
Where are the true visionaries in this caffeinated age?
Have they gone the way of the Saurischian?
Too many dotting the vast literary landscapes
Look as if they are
Gratifying
Indulging
Pimping
Procuring
Pandering
Pabulum slurping scrabble players dishing out
Insipid intellectual nourishment on paper plates.”

“Oh please …
Not another dose of your verbose ingenuity!
How noble-minded you are, spouting quaint
Patrician platitudes and doodling neoplatonism
On toilet paper parchments. All while you calmly
Slurp up old latte’ and philosophic balderdash.
As a courtesy I’ll remind you once again …
If you don’t want blisters then stop starching
Your socks! You will never find Love and
Peace without unity and communication,
Especially if TRUTH is taken out of the mix.”

“I’m still not convinced!”
“That’s what I figured!”
“I assume you have a more cogent example?”
“Yes dummy I do! Here’s one for your frayed synapses …
Finding anything literary about you would be like
Trying to anagrammatize the dangling participles
In your writing to find the hidden meaning of life.”

“You bastard!”
“You dork!”
“You’d insult your own mother!”
“Only if she was related to you!”
“That was a low blow!”
“Then get a grip!”
“Grip this you puke!”
Up came the middle finger unfurled in salute
“Is that your age or your IQ?”
“You know man, why don’t you take a long
Walk off a short pier!”
“Hey dude, I’m sick of you always dissin on me!”
“Hey man … you’re the one who thinks you’re
Better than everybody.”
“I don’t think I’m better than everybody – just you!”
“Look you lobster wannabe …”

At that very moment the backdoor of the home
Opened and out walked a man and a woman.
“Oh honey look,” the woman pointed,
“Somebody spilled their Starbucks.”
“Hey look at that,” the man pointed also,
“There are two cockroaches drinking it.”
“Oh I hate those things!” The woman shuddered.
“Would you stomp them and clean up the mess?”

Richard Lloyd Cederberg

Spontaneous, deliberate

Expression of the Source-Essence

Concurrently manifesting

In all beings – all dimensions;

Eternally evolving and

Transforming in an absolute

Exploration of Omni-One.

© 2008

“Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed.”

~ Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier

L o n e s o m e

is
the click of the lock
on a door as it closes
in your face
then the chain slides home
is
the sliver of light
silence swallows
laughter leaving you out
all night whispers
is
dark torturing dusk
before moving in for the kill
raising gooseflesh
as it follows you to work
and back not seeing not
feeling not
but for shadows that stalk
as your feet grope a walk
all crumpled dirt mixed with
rock

not that one remembers
one remembers all right

once silk sheets warmed
out of love
no more

l o n e s o m e
is
no coat and your shoes have holes
and you are thinking of hanging
a black wreath
to stave off questions and collectors
is
new wheels and no one to pick up
new do and no one to look twice
new outfit new club
even you don’t look
is
the long, low, moan
of a train going nowhere
and taking forever
under a pail handle moon
packed waiting room
jetway station so called home
stranger wearing love’s necklace
ambulance like wail could be
fire truck
same old backyard barbeque
jokes voices bar chatroom meet
in the basement of some church
is
a shriek from a child
torn into with a belt
or bloodied by a bullet
just happened to stray

l o n e s o m e
is
the only one on the bus
driver yawning at the end
of the line it is two in the morning
and the houses and streets decay
out of fashion cemetery offers
tombstones losing to
vandals and weeds
bulbs flick dim yellow light
often no light at all

l o n e s o m e is

BREATHLESS

In that moment between heartbeats,
When life hesitates, and hoping becomes
An illusion of fulfillment, you appeared as
A lucent mist smiling with extended hands.
Lamenting though, as I was, an epigonic misfit,
Confused, striving, briefly, in so many words,
To shift the eminence of illusory judgment
Across eons of possibilities – you took the time
To transilluminate those things hidden in me,
Those things capricious.

In supple fleeting moments I found myself dancing
With sunbeams and wind, as intangible escorts sought
To illuminate and extrapolate those treasures, for
Decades hidden, and reiterate them as curios on shelves.
Groaning opaquely, you slathered innovative ideas, as thick dew,
Across neuronal voids, impassively sighing, as tender synapses
Began firing in organized fashion. Chortling, you pointed again
Mulishly at my old thinking and debilitating habits, and sought
Out discrepancies and anomalies to further exacerbate my desire
To remain rebellious, as if it was nothing more for you than
Equus Caballus swatting flies with the tail.

With the smoothness of hot honey, and the groaning
Of tectonic plates, your ideas melted my staid thinking
As those glaciers in boxes that once bound me in shadowy fetters.
In that moment between heartbeats, where life is suspended
Between universes and the restless mind equates
Dogma with verity, you disseminated those areas in me
Once thought sacred, with the verdant dew of innovation.

Embracing me as an equal, we drifted across the stria
Of new thought. Together, with the melodious and contrapuntal
Strains of new resonance; I discovered, between heartbeats,
That the occurrence had rendered me quite breathless.

Richard Lloyd Cederberg