Ionesco Is Grinning
by Odin Roark

Old and worn,
But never falling.
Like a stack of history’s lounge chairs
Piled tenuously skyward,
Aging waits formally attired
In regulation-issued pajama bottoms and umbrella.

What must the ghosts think,
Those shadows peering from the ethereal curtains of rest
Joining roguish drafts spiraling about in unison,
Playing along with cosmic-light’s hide-and-seek
While waiting the bells of darkness to toll
The ushering in of another momentary reprise?

Hour upon hour
The balance is held beneath flirtatious heavens,
Even while audacity teeters atop its rickety,
Yet daring asymmetry,
Knowing well the timeless odds.

How persistent the threat,
Like multiple windowpanes of yesterday,
Mirroring a setting sun’s repose into blinding fear,
Threatening this may be the last reflection.

Some might think ill of this absurdity,
Yet, how folly to distance illusions,
The insistent partner to perpetuity’s pastime,
That game never called on account of darkness.

Many will judge to be part of this silly tower of make-believe
Is to but await the thawing of frozen memories,
Evaporation, and the enjoining of ghosts
Now snickering at the absurdity of fineto.

Ionesco is grinning.