Thread by @RCdeWinter

#poetry

A Catalogue of Stray Observations by a Superannuated Flâneuse

Summer’s here and the bars are crowded, along with the beaches,
malls and every other place we go to forget the fragility of life
in a world where foolishness masquerades as courage

and we all think we’re invincible until the day we wake up dead.

The flags are flying in Tokyo but the Reaper’s there too –
moving silent and hungry as he feeds his insatiable appetite,
feasting on the multicolored souls of pilgrims

from 206 countries come to cheer the best and brightest
in a dizzying catalogue of competition celebrating
the triumphs of bodies devoted to human perfectibility.

But, despite years of training and toning, these paragons
of physicality are every bit as vulnerable to mutating pathogens
as I – a silent passenger whose only exercise is taking out the trash,

the autonomy of lungs filling and deflating and trying
not to lose my mind in the clamor of an overcrowded world,
where lies are taken for truth and truth is hidden in dark halls
accessible only to the elite –and even there the legerdemain of liars

with fast hands and full purses colors fact with the gloss of deceit.

And now that I’ve wandered from the stage of the world –
carrying nothing but the nonsense of these stray observations

to the basement that makes it go round – I’ll take out the trash,
pour myself a drink, sit down and shut up.

© 2021 RC deWinter
Published in Meat for Tea: The Valley Review
Vol. 3, Issue 3, September 20
#Art: Artist's Soul © 2012 RC deWinter

Good evening and thanks to all who read/shared the #poem
“A Catalogue of Stray Observations by a Superannuated Flâneuse” I hope the evening is treating you gently.