Barmecidal Dreamscapes
by Odin Roark

Washington,
Wall Street,
Hollywood,
Nashville,

Where aspirant regurgitation overflows,
and ambition’s bait boxes
morph their delights by the hour
into a Neverland fishing hole.

All the while…

Gluttony's promised feast,
ignorant of cyclic famine,
awaits the pernicious fate-agent,
scouting to burrow like a weevil
into the new crop of innocence.

Trusting destiny to the winds of chance,
confident, redolent success smells
French perfume,
garlic enhanced delicacies,
fresh tanned leather of opulent travel,
assuming it’s theirs to have.

How fragrant the illusory air becomes,
the temperature of anticipated fortune's shift,
where once a round-shouldered indigent freshman pounded doors,
now seeming strangely triumphant,
unknowingly erect as a naked rose stem,
as yesterday's portent of rich reward
rapidly sheds its petals into a mulch-fest,
anticipating tomorrow's next planting.

How fleeting the enigmatic feast of notoriety,
time's incumbent qualification
for re-introducing innate principals,
surreptitiously becoming today's attention
as a requisite for tomorrow's elusive truth.

Yet…

Fearful of fruitless coming years,
too few embrace cognizance
over fading Klieg lights,
accepting party snubs absent red carpet entrances
as a maître d's forgetfulness.

Yes…

The harvesting of one's experience
might suffer drought and winds,
scattering past efforts to but memories of dust,
rather than priceless benchmarks
to reveal the authentic self.

For, want it or not…

Such a disposition may well make a "Being" difficult and distant,
where the "take a number and be seated" readout at DMV
may well become a feared test,
where waiting becomes a ticking-off-process,
where the asking if one can hold onto the simpler distant past,
those surprising coming-of-age sensations,
the first time rewards of libations' survival,
the generous thank you once felt by the first kiss,
and yes, one's elation upon receiving that first driver's license…

Maybe such simplicity becomes sufficient reward.
Perhaps we think,
review and ponder "what price" aspiration
in order to arrive at ambition’s door
with wisdom.

So often blind to trickery,
this ingrained desire frequently stumbles
upon start marks not meant to be,
distant finishing lines
not meant to be reached,
merely known.

Still…

We all take a number,
hoping to hear our name called
to be who others tell us we are, or...

Such dangerous persuasion,
this thing called ambition.