False Dilemma


The Gods said
examine your head
you can either keep your hair 
or your sanity
I kept my hair





Silk Road Fortress


Crenelated walls 
of the ancient fortress
on the cold desert plateau 
eroded into the centuries.
But I bet its inhabitants 
made strong coffee. 





Take That -- Time
 

Time won’t come out to play
It won’t bargain
for a return trip
or make an exchange of
…a year, a week, a day
For any reason
No matter how devout

Wrongly condemned prisoners
Released after decades
Must hate time
For not opening up
And giving back
what everyone agrees
should not have been taken

Or a persistent old scientist rediscovering
a forgotten element
He once encountered as a young lab assistant
The one that could have made all the difference to his life experiment

Killjoy time
Has firm rules against a do-over.
And I suppose it likes having sayings written about itself…
If I knew now what I knew then…
Making up for lost time…

Since time won’t play along
I compensate in the present  
Willing as much experience
as the moments  
will allow

Take that -- time.





Seasonal Change


In the bungalows of happiness
householders put up their
can goods of well-wishes

Out back
the kids are
stoking bonfires of resentment
in derelict steel drums

Darkness and winter
are waiting at the end of the street





Beauty Substitutions


When you can't find beauty 
from the train window
in the passing scenery
of derelict buildings
with black eyes
on a slate gray February evening.

Do you find you can 
make beauty substitutions?

The rusting steel of 
a northern New Jersey salvage yard 
by twilight 
never looked better.




©2014 John Kropf