(OK, so I reread me some Dylan Thomas…)

The cost of misleading innocence is hell to come!
Open your oranges,
Saddle up the pensive mule grey.
The wide swing, periwinkle,
Too juiced up and camouflaged for combat,
Cool deception counting for at least half in battles won.

The cost of misleading innocence is hell to come!
To struggle against their rusty black shackle,
Puppets writhing inside a silk-lined pill-box,
Hung with the care of a married woman,
Unhinged with the slap of a stiff back-hand,
Hope a lonely distant cousin, nearly absent, now gone.


The cost of misleading innocence is hell to come!
A dozen fat headlines to be squinted in and spat upon,
At doorstep with official business ties, men at the ready,
Fearless editors remarking false history, and smut,
A shout out to wink and normalcy,
Wet and smudged from the drizzled soot and rain.

The cost of misleading innocence is hell to come!
And in each refrain that ghost of presents past and future,
This hand on the back of time,
Cajoling with honey scented breath mints,
Becoming all with nothing, the intent,
Stumbling through underbrush wearing only
Cheesecloth and a smile.

The cost of misleading innocence is hell to come!
It’s not that not enough elusive to the core can still become.
The lion dreams gazelles to ice cream and in licking them awake,
Sidesteps twenty one cent trees in guileful indifference,
Lost for ages near the penniless arcades and by jukebox glow,
Knowing to land on unrepentant feet is unforgivable.

The cost of misleading innocence is hell to come!
Deeds, deeds, deeds and old debts,
If found, could never have less than done.
Four eyes to the new true future,
Where once two would have been enough,
Short sweet breaths to push them on…

The cost of misleading innocence is hell to come!
The thick black bushes at knees, to way give.
A trip in defiance, the fallen slumber in blue retrospect;
Shoulders to boulder shoving down in abject delirium,
Over the top and unstoppable, this fiery ball,

This retribution through window pain to look upon,
And by God’s own admission,

The cost of misleading innocence is hell to come!





Michael S. True
10-30-13