By Tony DeLorger © 2015

How many times must I endure,
my own sweet refrain, my beauty predilection,
the guise of all this pain,
when life beckons stark reality, regardless;
the grit of struggle an discrepant lubricant,
to the dim pleasures of superficiality,
revered often and debased by few, including myself.

Pleasures carnal can be an instrument of harm,
its razor edge a familiar bleed,
and yet love in its entirety, moves the world,
and the fullness of it, I have yet to find,
impropriety a waxing visage,
an underlying manipulation for insensible need,
the accumulating self to wholeness.

When has honesty gone,
does it even know of itself, cowering in some dark recess,
nigh used, let alone understood,
and I like any another, seek refuge in blessed intent,
nectar far more appealing than dark viscous blood,
freedom the epiphany, in chains the nightmarish tale,
all for an envisaged salvation.

I choose to wear my pain,
veiled by all I see in appeasement of it.

By Tony DeLorger © 2015

The sun did sting, on a summers morn,
when walk the street I did, for seasons joy,
and came across a flock of bobbing heads,
a gaggle of cooing pigeon pies,
high-stepping with amorous notes,
a mass of interchangeable nodding domes,
feathers like a bed of many colors, writhing.

Each passer by, the flock took flight,
their shadow cloaked that beating sun,
flapping feathers, escaped to lines and boughs,
their incessant chatter, ongoing,
and their mark profound before my steps,
in textured white small mounds,
sidestepped I, and passed them by, a furtive glance, goodbye.

Like a thrashing breeze they returned to ground,
cooing, prancing up and down,
like the street had come alive in rolling waves of feather frenzy,
and I, pleased for untainted clothes, no marble gifts,
journeyed on, stepping to shade
and ever looking upward,
per chance a wise friend's sharing.