Emphemera Dora C. Villarosa 01.27.03-Montclair, NJ

An
addlepated excursion
to a precarious peripeteia–
blind through the brume,
and sick from the smell.

Stuck in the midst
of a marred mythopeia–
slow to get started,
but quick to compel.

Imbued with a hankering
no language can limn,
a vertiginous apathy
somehow transudes.

Here it is holy
to act on a whim,
and nothing but dreams
are more fickle than moods.

II

Here the Ephemera
is hailed as sublime;
her power will always be
stronger than His.

Here the Ephemera
is adored and revered;
Here the Ephemera
Is all that there is.

III

The lachrymose landscape
Is candent from cold–
and argentine eidolons
surround the serac

where the Ephemera
spryly grows old.
She’s dewy-eyed,
but dressed in black.

This dark dulcinea
with gloaming visage
sings sarcasm sweetly
under her breath.

There is little to see
but a misty mirage–
He knew he was there
from the fetor of death.

IV

Through brambles and thickets,
fables and lies,
our corpulent culprit
journeyed with heed.

With hands in his pockets
and eyes on the prize,
Babbitt was suddenly
smote from his steed.

"What’s this?" Babbitt cried,
"What’d I do? Who’s there?"
his echoes deliquesced
into the gloom.

He thought he felt
a gelid stare–
but he could see nothing
but blur through the brume.

Then through the obscurity
a resonance crept–
tart and euphonious,
an ensorcelling dirge,

mesmeric and numinous,
slowly it swept,
causing pygmies and ronyons
and rooks to emerge.

Our rubenesque huntsman
stood wheyfaced, agape,
as the truculent melody
tickled his ear.

Watching Ephemera’s
army take shape-
he chattered his teeth,
and whimpered with fear.