To dissect the mind
or rally the cause,
but your words come up empty,
like stasis on pause.

So you put up your web site
and type in your Word:
a mouthpiece for Gurus
who want to be herd.

You stamp out a template
and auction your ware
that builds them a stairway
for climbing up air.

You translate their yearnings,
transfigure their Muse,
with a medium message
divine in its use.

Yet a lukewarm reception
devours your spiel,
consumed and digested
by The Zombies of Zeal.

For years you persist
in your nebulous quest
toward a furious sound
of infinite jest.

And you never look back
as your life passes by
to present as reflections
not seen through your eye.

But one day you wake
with a pain in your gut
that your fame is a fake
and your mountain, a rut.

So you fall from the sky
’til your life’s on the level
to lie in your bed
while embracing the Devil.

And you sing with the sirens
a glorious wail,
obscuring the site
of the Visioner’s Grail.

And the auctioneer’s gavel
indentures the Muse
and takes a percentage
of all whom she screws.

But one day She dies,
consumed with the clap,
and Her audience cries
as it lays in your lap.

So you cradle its head,
as it cradles yours,
and you wish you were dead
(save the proceeds from tours.)

But it isn’t the money,
nor is it the fame,
and it never was simply
the name of the game.

And it isn’t the insight
of getting there first,
nor the common law marriage
of better and worst.

You keep scratching your head
’til it coughs up a thought
in the hope it tastes better
than those that you bought.

You savor the flavor
that burns through your tongue,
for Truth leaves you speechless
and breathless and young.

And the answers you sought
with obtuse nomenclature
turn out to be more
of a personal nature.

So the final few words
of the self-focused work
provide answers for me.

Melanie Anne Phillips
Creator, StoryWeaver
Co-creator, Dramatica

*******

From previous weeks:

Lulladie

My emotions are dead
and lack any resistance
to the onslaught of logic’s
relentless persistence.

I’m malleable, movable,
flexible, still.
I succumb with aplomb,
as I alter my will

to conform to the pressures
that weigh on my soul
without motive, or method,
opinion, or goal.

They reach for the stars,
as they stand on our hearts,
and they sell us off piecemeal,
parcels and parts.

They slice us to mincemeat
and padlock the door,
while our blood runs quite freely
through holes in the floor.

But nothing is wasted,
tho’ everything’s lost.
So our blood is recycled
to offset the cost.

We huddle in darkness
yet shy from the fire
to howl at the moon
with the rest of the choir.

And when the glow wanes,
we stoke it with dreams
in hopes that the crackle
will drown out our screams.

You sleep in your bed
and you doze in your chair.
Your cushions are comfy
and so is your air.

But your heartache grows heavy,
as well as your head,
‘til you nod away, nod away,
nod away, dead.

*******

The Cosmic Flea

Can you be, a cosmic flea,
‘twixt handle, crank and cog?
A particle that rides the waves,
upon the cosmic dog?

Or are you doomed to be marooned,
along that furry shore?
And strain against the handle,
’til crank turns cog no more?

Melanie Anne Phillips
Creator, StoryWeaver
Co-creator, Dramatica