Strangers to Paradise

Beating hour of night's mid-life,
candlelit solitude brims me its fullest with nostalgia.

Tangled in knots of wonder, I question if it had been joker, king or
famous deity whom one morrow rose with pronunciation that life be
lived; with verdict that this fabrication should be known by word of
"living"; that puppets should walk beneath the title of "living";

For, to Living,
to Breathing, to Dying
we were bereft a presage of accord.

We never aspired to awaken,
contemporary outlanders of Heaven;
strangers to grace,
strangers to harmony;
evicted from paradise,
fallen from the sky.

Yet our lips, one morrow, their initial breath inspired.
And gasped, they did at freedom,
already addicted to the beguiling taste, unwitting of the gamble;
unwitting of its odds that most brimming is that first binge to abide
throughout our unelected turns.

But shall we parish at the beat that leaves our first moment in
esterday, or simply weep while spectating the rest cascade through
our ungripping fingertips?
Why even endure what life, or scraps we are tossed, if granted we are
but mortal duration?

Ask, I must of anyone with ears,
our lips, bear they still breathe?
our hearts, bear they still a pulse;
our passion - a face;
our eyes - a soul
or are we simply left in wind-up
and Death has already claimed his toll?

The Hourglass in My Attic

My attic is haunted by phantom flames

that ignite in the back alleys of my heart,
whispering a soft serenade of nostalgia,

as I stumble across our portrait.

It lays in my attic,
sketched with memory;
freezing time's cascading void
for just one moment,
with only one sight, but a thousand visions;

Just one heartbeat
to pulsate each memoir behind my eyelids until it fades into a
chimerical daydream of those old portraits that displayed but young,
careless, naive dreamers, with the world slipping by, expendable at
their fingertips.

Thinking back...
crib collages nullified to ashes;
starving for scraps of summer days;

Remembering the tattoos we engraved
on the walls inside each other's hearts, now grafittied with rancor,
and broken in their wind-up. Humanity posed to be their greatest flaw. How many 40-day,
40-night, blood, tear, sweat - bound knots became tarnished, snipped,
untied; they were drowned out when our eyes were layered with
blindfolds of arrogance, and inundated were our souls with greed.
On how many wondrous nights,
before their demise, they had laid sight!
How many pearly wings
they had fancied themselves acquiring!
And through skies of so many shades
they had dreamed of taking flight!

They had dreamed in shades of blue
as light as desert skies,
deep as the chaotic void
and dark as the heart of jazz.

But they had never dreamed of this.

Phantom figurines are shaped by the sands cascading from the hourglass
in my attic; We are now crafted connoisseurs in the rulebook buried
beneath; The brood of the chaotic flow that Father Time named
"Judgment":

This manual scribed beneath dim lanterns, illuminating with but a
black and white verdict glow.
The putrid stench composing its covers, we jump for as the bait of
"acceptance".

Lavished, adorned in restlorn silence, dripping paint that knitted
each lining of taboo.
With the angelic Reaper's wings were numbered its pages; the blueprint
dangling beneath its title: "society".

And fear is the curtain that continues to hide if whether birthed of
Time or deed carrying the whisper "stranger"
is a scattered lining of taboo.

Poured out, discarded were our midnights of fantasy scribbled by lips
of dreamers; hope of paradise melted into another lining of taboo.

My thoughts gambol between the smiles
you abandoned in my attic;
those smiles scathed by the ivory-winged numbers that never glimpse
rhythms of change.
And that whisper never ensconced in silence.

But though from these chains
we now dangle like puppets,
I know that once,
in summer days and daydreams we all lived and breathed; I know that
once, our wings were pearly white, ready to fly, the moment we learned
how; and I know that once, we were all born free.

Once Upon a Looking Glass

Once upon a midlife night,
I stood by lamp of lunar gleam
haggling, swapping words with her;
she who claims to incarnate
my portrait boxed in that reflection.

Endeavoring, I was to heed,
(careless if adorned
with rage, lust or persuasion);
to catch but a restive heartbeat
of my merchant of conversation.

Staring me down with seclusive verdict, were eyes containing but
winter gale; glacial pearls of ebon luster, splendorous with
immolation.

Nihilistic lore
and lullabies of ensnared temptation
from her lips, still salty,
she streamed in breath;
letting slip through her fingertips
the breath of air to my salvation.

She never knew
she would get swallowed up
my porcelain merchant of conversation.

Ensconced in ire,
she stood there, burning;
as chalk engagement rings
were flaunted by ebon pearls

And I asked her why
she lost her ways;
why her portrait is complexioned
in such a torrid, ashen haze;

I ask her why she let slip by
the breath of air to my salvation.

So, from salty lips,
she started weaving
chronicles of my creation,
stashing behind her eyelids
the only true authentic copy.

And when I waken, it is with question
if she remains the closest being
holding even crumbs of anything
I may adorn with trust,
once upon a looking glass:

Weaver of my immolation,
the only one to know
what I truly have to lose,
my dire array of biography,
the crystal keeper of my taboos,
chaotic portrait of my creation:
my porcelain merchant of conversation.

The Drifter

Once, there lived, only in dreams,
a little gipsy girl.

She was born of cardboard fairies
and of roses, but not pearls.

In the sun, though, in her life, infrequent she dreamed only of rain
clouds, waiting for vivacious days; And she dreamed through chaos only
beauty restive in her little ways.

In the storm, she dreamed of cries
to drain the color from the sky
until all that remained was dust;

And one could map the world
just by gazing in her eyes;
and see arcadic vaulted domes
and archaic desert skies.

Every night, she sat in council
beneath Orion's gaze,
the only constant of her duration;
Serenading him with stories,
recounting her dreams and days.

But, despite illustrious tracts
onto which she was thrust,
when she found herself alone,
she only dreamed of trust.

Intrinsic Tattoos

With every fallen grain of time,
our hearts progress in their inundation, detained between walls of
Pandora's box.

They duel for scraps of air still young and naive; thirsting, as
though unfated with demise, for their once-ascendant idealism, until
discarded at the Angel's feet.

But in turns that hold this moment
in the hourglass a fallen grain,

or tattoos of middle age that curve frigid emotion we were once
constituted in abundance to contain.

In times where seldom still are we merchants eye to eye of words we've
thieved, and priority uses different keys in the wind-up of our
thoughts;

whether friends, foes
or lovers
we are left by time,
and regardless of which story
was between us once indited;

may we be stripped of every dash of consent that allows us to forget
those of yore season, the people once wearing our epithets.

Angela Lungu is originally from Romania, presently residing in Reno,Nevada. She admires and enjoys the work of Paulo Coelho, Fred Hoyle, (Mistress) Anne Bradstreet and William Blake.

Copyright 2006, Angela Lungu. This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.