The Banderlog*
       

At the nursing home, mischievous spidery creatures,
adversely, they're creeping down on the gates of hell,
hand clasped in hand, glittering like tortoiseshell—.
Their murmur of gods is only to lull the young—.
Fierce of dreams, they are full of scorn—
who want it no more, though stamped with its parts,
and therefore they gamble,—betting against their hearts.

Watch their shadows dance as lonely as bones in Plato's cave!
They throw back ragged kisses to what they were,
and wildly miss—by galaxies— lost times misremembered,
half-hopes misplaced. — What do you need, — we ask.
They snicker. We own the gift no more than a star or a fly.
Still, they wink us well with one remaining
crooked, yellow, humorous eye.

*Kipling's monkeys

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Copyright © 2016 Andrew Glaze All rights reserved
from Overheard in a Drugstore
NewSouth Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission