Palace Amusements (published on The Literary Librarian)
Asbury Park
greets me
within your thin lipped
toothy smile
At the end of every labyrinth,
you straddle the seashore’s yen.
You are a funhouse mirror
distorting my figure
yet always finding
abundant embodiments
within my gut
My navel yearns
for that connection
to amusement within
these vibrant walls
Love was the product
of jackpots
won from slot machines
dispensing ducats
Tokens tossed from one hand
Arm pulled by the other hand
You were the windfall
stashed within this chest
of hazy nostalgia
Adulthood proves more haunting
compared to the cart
carrying me through
those mysterious halls
Wishing I could be hypnotized
just so I could catch a spoonful
of what once satiated my satisfaction
One taste of the sacrament
derived from riding the roller coaster
before it became a cliche
denoting a diagnosis
Before mania
surged through my synapses
like a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo
After bumper cars foreshadowed
the accidents I’d face
throughout these
static frequencies
of depression
If you were a Eucharist
I’d be an idolator
For you were the body of a god
I tasted before knowing what it meant
to be a righteous Jew
You were the excuse I needed
to play hooky from Sunday school
You were the choir who greeted me
before I possessed the voice to echo
any calls I desperately needed to answer
You were the calming voice I needed
before my own soothsaying emerged
Now the tongue with which I speak
needs to taste the honey
into which I dip my apple
Now this fruit
stores nectar
of passing years
in a cloud
Accessed via my digital thumbprint
Repressed via my carbon footprint
Pollen is carried by a generation
of workers and drones
If I left an intention on my doorstep…
I’d wish for it
to be carried
by the Westerleigh wind…
I’d hope the corners
of the crown
in my castle
mirrored this palace
of amusements
I’d pray the pleasantries
could be contained
by the channels
from which we feel joy
May our data be easy to transmit
even if our devices are outdated
May said devices be reused
as analog anecdotes
Let them be paperweights
for the childhoods we cherish
Preserving a trail
back to the inner offspring
struggling to spawn and survive
