u/Philoforte

Useful in Nebraska

Is a sled instead of a car

Drawn by snow leopards

Lost in the white

Breathing granules of ice

Weaving past pines

Searching for quietude

Beyond urban bees

A place in the cold

Aerated with soul

Free from cliffhangers

TV land vice

The sprawl of office hive

Urgent needs to contrive

Confected gain

In summary name

Clip notes on file

Human dynamics

Subordinate guile

There's freedom in flow

Here in the wild

Away from supervision

Orders to hop

Roaring beck and call

Collective tale of old

Prefer this trail

Erased in the snow

In the far distance

Floating specks aglow

Neither stars nor moons

A find of strange kind

Spectral illumination

Over half buried book

Glowing letters from pages

Selling the outrageous

There's alignment in value

In letting things be

Let matters rest

Is sometimes the best

Be silent and listen

Nothing inserted in pages

Coaxing the light

To grace and to glisten

Beneath worshipful pines

Juniper and birch

This natural wonderland

Is an evergreen church

Clearwater Florida

Port of call

Captain's journaling log

Steering into harbour

Going by feel

Nothing can be seen

The fog is too dense

Taking all sense

Trust one's instincts

Or strike the reef

There's too much at stake

Else coming to grief

No navigation by stars

No sonar to avail

Pointed pinnacles beneath

Forging forth

In blinded sight

Unflinching trust

In nautical intuitions

The engine room steams

Hold packed with munitions

Steering with aplomb

We are a bomb

Calmness beneath the moon

Head for the lagoon

Smelling the bay

Hearing blast of horns

Steering the right way

Moved by invisible hands

Guided by fates

Internal radar in sync

We've made it so far

No lifeboat to row

Safe currents in the undertow

Cast anchor at once

We're safely through I think

Harbour near enough to be seen

Hands still gripping the till

Calmness after the thrill

Too switched on

After the plight

Nearly moored on a shoal

Scoring an own goal

No need to ponder the brink

No lifebuoy in sink

Time for coffee

Or heady drink

What can I say

To colour your day

At least blue has a hue

Frigid skies of grey

I'm not going to sing a tweet

That would be offbeat

I fall into silence

To draw out the heat

You have friends on the ground

And I'm out of town

Just a plasticine man

Unable to bend

However I hope to amend

Your depletion of you

But it's beyond my ken

To know what to do

Purveyor of hope

I've done all I can

All beyond my scope

I'll sit here and wait

The sun abate

And with the dawn

A little something is born

Small talk on offer

Prattle of the forlorn

Baubles in the coffer

Strung from trees

Of fir with honeyed bees

But I'm a lark

Croaking in the dark

Metallic song

Fairies in throng

In fable we belong

Lost in other lands

Fauns and mystic friends

Gargoyle hunched and grim

Spouting soda and drink

Castles of ice cream

Striated and pink

No succour in split dream

Cracked so it doth seem

All wasted but to wait

Stay safe in languid state

Medicine in a cup

But raspberry syrup

Is really for me

Vertigo, spiral velocity

Hold the chair

Your loss of felicity

Is something I bear

In love I do care

We are a Hive Mind

On the artificial planet Talroun

I turn off connection

So much chatter, I could swoon

A little peace is compensation

For all that heated conversation

I return the plug to the jack

If I am caught, I'll cop some flak

Brenda 5 calls me to the station

I'm in trouble, sour reaction

But if I'm sued

I'd get traction

Nothing courts celebrity

Than a little notoriety

Brenda 5 can read my mind

And lets me off the hook

Please, according to book

I'm the dissident

Barely a crook

Far from being the insurgent

I can read Brenda's mind

And her need is urgent

Curse of the Hive

I have the eye of Brenda 5

To breed from me to survive

In the copulation dome

And co-habit a home

Alas, she's not quite my type

All read on Skype

Betrayed by my thought

Blushing more than I ought

She understands in good grace

Comforted by all in solace

We're good as fellow travellers

But not as amorous revellers

Explained over wine

Still we shall dine

Just friends is fine

Perhaps lovers

Another time

Escaping prison planet

Pursued by the law

Accross frozen tundra

To port city Stanislaw

Muscle packed Sandra

Is a renegade on the run

Amazonian soaking up the fun

All she needs is her pump action gun

And a supply of stimulants

To fight off replicants

At the toll gate to her escape ship

I'm not letting her skip

A bulwark in frame

I stonewall her game

So she fires into my shields

They hold better than steel

Armour suited, I emerge

To implore that she quit

My voice amped to surge

But the lady in fine wit

Is scarcely the twit

Firing at my kneecaps

Forcing me to sit

Shut-down of apps

This armoured suit is blown

Riddled with cracks

Heavy impact shown

From her pump action blast

I pray hands clasped

My attempts to stall her bust

I shed the armoured suit in surrender

Just a toll attendant, remember

But she takes me as hostage

Ensuring us passage

Flight in cargo ship

Giving Galactic Feds the slip

Now cozy in her pen

I happen to like it

A good end

Fatima and I take Alladin's motorcycle on a test run down a dragstrip. I roll the throttle to max with Fatima clutching me with gloved hands. Nothing untoward happens, so I brake gently to a halt, a little disappointed.

When the motorcycle stops, the dragstrip arena fades with the day, leaving us facing an Egyptian temple at night. Torches, positioned in receptacles neatly before the temple's entrance, offer strong illumination. A temple priest in blue and yellow headdress stands before us.

"Greetings again Tutenatrar and Evarcar," he says in a dialect we are curiously able to understand, "I, Imhoteb, fall in worship."

He falls to his knees, prostrating, and says, "You have returned, no doubt, for the climax of the night's magic."

How have we been here before? Who are we that we are taken for gods in Ancient Egypt with the same names given us by the Vamskarl on their Tuniswurl subterfuge?

The only explanation is the organised tampering of time, and we have been manipulated to be a part of it, like right now. Alladin delivered us his time travelling motorcycle in the foreknowledge that we had taken it for this run.

"What magic?" I ask in precise lingua, my mind curiously synchronised to place and time. I alight from the motorcycle with Fatima following suit.

Imhoteb returns to his feet and replies, "The sacrifice of a virgin child and the deliverance of her still beating heart to the Ark of Anubis for the levitation of slabs. We need to raise another pyramid."

"Do we really want to see this?" Fatima blazes.

"No, we don't," I say and address Imhoteb with our most pressing concern, "are there other gods besides us here now?"

"Yes," he replies, "Setiraz is preparing his garments for the ceremony."

"Lead us to him," I say, drawing out my blaster from its shoulder holster.

Imhoteb leads me into the temple. Fatima, equipped with her Kudweister rifle no longer slung from her shoulder, follows behind me. At least, we have Setiraz outnumbered. We follow a long antechamber into the atrium.

A young girl in sacrificial garments lies on an altar in the centre of the courtyard, obviously in stupor. Alladin, in priestly garments and framed by a golden ark, stands over her, ready to reach for a sacrificial knife resting on the altar.

"Don't you dare," I say, levelling my blaster at his chest.

Alladin blithely picks up the knife and says, "Go ahead, shoot!"

I do so. The beam strikes harmlessly on his chest, molecular absorption and dispersion of photon energy rendering him invulnerable and aglow.

I rush toward him as he raises the knife. Within striking distance, the knife turns into a scimitar of solid light, causing me to baulk. He slashes in a sweeping horizontal arc, severing my torso and dividing me into halves.

As pain takes my vision, I glimpse Fatima toppling the ark onto him before merciful blackness ...

I wake up in a hospital bed, back in Havorok City, Roghutov. Fatima hovers over me with a concerned expression.

"Don't tell me," I say, "Evarcar restored Tutenatrar on the fifth day using the powers of Thoth."

"Actually, Alladin's time capsule is called Thoth and its A.I. assistant Horus helped me restore you from pieces," she replies.

"They are writing us into legend to control progenitor narratives that inform human reality," I say, "rewriting planetary histories to suit their preferred script."

"Yes, my dear Elias Tutenatrar Fontaneau," she says, kissing me.

Am I really still alive?

At precinct headquarters, Commissioner Faraday has ordered Fatima and me to his office. His face is ruddy and flushed. How could this dignified grey suited and grey haired man be so flustered?

"Sit down," he commands and we do so. "There is a mole in the police department and I need you to do an internal investigation."

"We're just rookies," I say. "Why entrust something so big to us?"

"Because you are new, you can't be the mole," he replies. "I can't even trust my sergeants and inspectors."

He points to the wall screen behind his authoritarian swivel chair. A video plays of a motorcyclist surrounded by three officers. The motorcyclist removes his helmet, and the camera enlarges his face and freezes his image. We recognise Alladin in his leather apparel.

"We brought this man into questioning as a suspected trafficker in stolen property," Commissioner Faraday says, "but he escaped detention before being questioned. He had to have been assisted internally by our mole, because this looks like an inside job. Internal video feeds have been tampered with, their time stamps erased."

I grin and say, "That man is Alladin, an agent of the Ahriman Conglomerate and they are the Vamskarl, able to enter data streams with their consciousness. All they had to do was corrupt and manipulate our law enforcement A.I. Largren to spring him. You don't have a mole."

"A case for our I.T. division then," Commissioner Faraday says. "You can return to your duties."

"Err ... one more thing though," I say, remaining in my seat. "What loot was Alladin supposed to be trafficking in and do we still have his motorcycle and helmet?"

"We still have the motorcycle and helmet impounded," he replies. "As for the loot, it's a book stolen from the Congress World Library,."

He retrieves the book from his desk drawer and plants it on his desk before us. On its sleeveless, brown hardcover are the faded words "The Trifold Problem of Timetravel: Creating Temporal Instability" by "Barnaby Foxworth", just another book on Pseudo Science, unless it is so uncomfortably close to what is really possible, Alladin had to abscond with it.

I examine its pages and notice the date of publication is 1956 AD, yet it discusses quantum experiments in backward time travel by particles fired through slits in fibreoptic experiments. Since the book's place of publication is New York, Earth, either the date is a misprint or the book written by a real timetraveller keen to promote the flourishing of this science ahead of its time.

I tap the date of publication on the page, and Commissioner Faraday and Fatima nod with acknowledgement.

"The Vamskarl must be capable of timetravel and the motorcycle is probably also a time machine," I say. "Alladin is returning for his motorcycle and helmet, and this book."

"You're not going on that motorbike, Elias," Fatima says.

"The motorcycle seats two," I say.

Spray of magma

Explosion of fire mist

Fissures jagged on crust

Breaking of continental shelf

World sundered from itself

Spilling vital essence

Sitting on the moon

Watching destruction

In royal bloom

Smoky aplomb

Lost in spectacle

With people entombed

On planet that is doomed

Impassable divide

Inevitable slide

Arrest the tide

Banish this vision

In scrying bowl

Burn the scroll

Evoking flowers of fission

Mushroom cloud

Firework edition

Eulogy read aloud

Preternatural sensation

Change the future

Timeline suture

Weave the knit

Stitch the split

By casting spell

Repeated sell

Send out resonance

To dispel dissonance

A mantra of dance

Flowing cursive

Lyrical note

Treble clef float

Change the narrative

From radioactive

To placid end

Where everybody

Is everybody's friend

A prayer to embody

Clutch the railing

Shock! Preempt flailing

Let there be warning

From Amon Ra

Holy incentive

To ward off invective

Words of Atem

Hermetic seal

Non negotiable deal

Amen

Dark stranger on the bus

Who are you may I ask?

There is an enigmatic cast

About the way you hold yourself

The dark tresses that you wear

A nonchalance that cools the air

Perhaps my perceptions

Are far from the real

We've never spoken

My attentions misplaced

I look away

Immersed in any nook

On the bus

That increases distance between us

While my interest is natural

It would be unnerving to you

To know that I noticed

So keenly this way

But I'm no lurker

And I fight my inclinations

To ponder you further

So why are you coming over

To enter my space

Plant yourself in my full view

Perhaps you knew

Well dammit

How are you?

What's the difference between

Self confidence and pride?

I'm not bigger than anyone

But I can pick up heavy objects

With a finger

Is it conceit to celebrate a skill

Or is it a social ill?

Am I too forward

Not to hide a smile?

Self confidence submerged

Required guile

Don't overthink this

Be but a child

Shrug and just go

Don't inhibit the flow

Just take off and fly

No fissures in the sky

Shed this burdensome load

Of splitting hairs

Creating a world of neat boxes

Swim with the dolphins

Laugh with the foxes

What really matters

Is not mercury for hatters

There are prisons of logic

So relax over trifles

Qualified pride is self confidence

A statement of fact

Without needless tact

Sound sense is the tonic

Blaze beyond modesty

Hot in a tropic

Go supersonic

Entering a derelict ship in deep space

Is a far from congenial place

Walking through corridors

Hearing odd creaks

Is enough to give me the creeps

I draw my blaster

Thinking about alien monster

Just around the corner

Hissing buzz from broken cable

Spitting fumes and the odd spark

Slumped over the Captain's table

Is a skeleton in the dark

I want to flee but there's a video panel

Final transmission of doomed station

Calls the worst phantom

To my over-active imagination

There's a monster here called Fyrgratom

Don't turn around

There's company in town

Heavy breathing behind my shoulder

I freeze, not daring a shudder

Slowly turn around to confront the other

She is a demoness out of nightmare

Blaster aimed at her

But all I can do is stare

At the succubus from my wildest dreams

Sweat in my spacesuit

Pooling at the seams

This dark skinned Barbie

Is a trifle too unclad

Alluring to me

I'm a lad

And it's time I fled

Blasting the ceiling

Scattering dust and scrapnel

I run from the keening

Shrieks that are oddly personal

The demoness calls my name

A siren of pleading soprano

Evoking tears, changing the game

Recalling her physical monument

I stop, unable to flee

Lost to allurement

I can never be free

If she devours me

So may it be

Fatima and I find ourselves in an accounting firm in Havorok City, one so old, its archival records stretch back tens of thousands of years. This complicates matters as the chief accountant wants us to investigate a historical crime.

"The books have been cooked to hide an asset," Mr Tom O'Mahoney says. "A trophy object has been declared, then withdrawn, all references redacted and stamped as classified."

"And how long ago did you say it was?" I ask.

"One millennium ago," he says.

"So why should it matter now?" Fatima asks.

"Because an agent of the Ahriman Conglomerate has been pressuring me to find the whereabouts of that trophy object, whatever it is," he replies.

Fatima and I exchange glances.

"Can we access the archives on your mainframe computer?" I ask. "The Roghutov government may have classified an alien object from another galaxy, especially if it shows technological advancement beyond what we are capable."

"Like crystal skulls and the crashed ship at Roswell on Earth," Fatima says.

Mr O'Mahoney leads us to a wall-high screen in the vast office cluttered with cubicles and busy accountants. I sit at an operating terminal with touch keyboard, while he reaches over and punches a sequence of keys.

The file called up on-screen lists a declared asset by a plutocrat, Augustanos, but the name of the object and its description is replaced by [Redacted]. Its location is given as "classified" by the Roghutov Ministry of Forbidden Antiquities. The only way forward is to penetrate that Ministry.

I call Largren, our A.I. Director of Law Enforcement, on my cellphone and ask, "Can we get a special pass into the Ministry of Forbidden Antiquities?"

"There is no such thing as the Ministry of Forbidden Antiquities," Largren replies.

"We've reached a dead end, but if the object ever passed through this premises, the trail may not be cold," I say.

"We have an old storeroom in the basement, if you care to look," Mister O'Mahoney says. "Receipts of tendered objects may still be there among crates."

We follow him to the lifts and down into the basement. There must be hundreds of stacked crates in this vast storeroom. A printout of an ancient inventory is available at a press of a button on a wall panel.

Two hundred and thirty five objects are listed in the flowing sheet in my hands, but each valuable object has passed through inspection and valuation, leaving the crates here empty, except for a single helmet appraised as having no more than ordinary commercial value.

"Let's see this helmet," I say.

At the wall panel, Mr O'Mahoney sends forklift arms set in the wall to retrieve a box from the tallest stack of crates. The box delivered to my hands contains a red chrome motorcycle helmet.

I press my hand against the padding inside the helmet and feel circuitry beneath, but the helmet contains no socket and that is telling.

"If there are no sockets, this helmet must be an energy sieve able to leech energy from any nearby power source," I say, "and it will function the moment someone puts it on."

"Elias! Don't put that damned thing on!" Fatima says.

Which, of course, is the very thing I do. My consciousness dissolves to a pinpoint, and I am no longer aware of standing in a storeroom.

A data stream appearing as a river of blue quanta pours past me. I am a point of consciousness travelling into the data streams of the Galactic Web, down infinite rabbitholes of fibreoptic and wireless launch points. I don't know where this is leading me, but it must be somewhere important.

I am inside a decrypted data vault of the Ministry of Forbidden Antiquities, siphoning all its secrets into the neural mesh of my higher cortex.

I wake up as the helmet is wrenched off my head by Fatima.

"Are you okay?" she asks.

"More than okay," I reply. "The helmet is an alien artefact from a far off galaxy. It belongs to an alien civilisation so advanced, they can feed their consciousness into data streams. They are the Vamskarl and they are among us as the secret masters of the Ahriman Conglomerate. They are so advanced, they can surpass death by mishap. For example, you may have blown Alladin's brain with your rifle, but he is still alive!"

"How do you know that?" Fatima asks.

"What is the name of the Ahriman agent pressing you for the whereabouts of this trophy object?" I ask Mr O'Mahoney.

"Alladin," he replies.

Forged from silver

Inlaid with gold

Encrusted with sapphires

Drizzled with ruby dust

Wrapped with dyed silks

This dragon's egg

Is about to hatch

All it needs

Is to be tossed

Into an active volcano

And the hatchling

Will erupt forth

In a roar of fire

But this is no ordinary dragon

This hatchling is grown

She is pure energy

Coiled kundalini

Manifesting as Hecate

Piercing pink eyes

Pupils of a cat

Elongated canines

Wings of a bat

Leathered in black

A fiery roar

This svelte lady

Now walks the earth

So well camouflaged

She cannot be found

The cloak she wears

Is impenetrable to the eye

You'd need witchsense

To discern what you see

Cozy with this dragon

And your protector she'd be

But for her invisibility

Oppressors would flee

More lethal than Leviathan

Conjuring with clawed finger

Separating kernel from husk

Finding the dragon's egg in you

Daughters of the dusk

And sons of the morn

Your dragon lies dormant

That serpentine coil

Your noble constituents

Fertile soil

Our first assignment in Havorok City is a routine call out on a complaint of theft. But when new officers Fatima and I arrive at the citizen's home, we discover he is a graphic artist complaining about copyright theft.

"Look Mr Halroun, we are cops on the beat looking for real crime," I say to him in his drafting studio.

"Copyright theft is a real crime," Mr Halroun replies.

"Yes, but it's a matter of jurisprudence, not law enforcement on the ground," I say.

Princess Fatima, elegantly attired in dark blue uniform, rolls her eyes.

"You don't understand," he says heatedly. "A man impersonating my comicbook villain has been seen in the neighbourhood."

"We can't arrest a man for cosplay," Fatima says.

"My comicbook villain is Kremonash, armed with a projectile based weapon ... a gun not a blaster," he says, "and in the comicbook he shoots the president's daughter after she steps out of a motorcade, seizes her, and delivers her to hospital in time for her recovery in ER. The head of ER is none other than the real world alias of Kremonash, who saves the girl's life because he loves her."

"I get it," I say. "Our cosplay villain may want to carry out the comicbook crime for real."

"I know that for a fact because I've seen him near my premises in perfect facsimile outfit, scaling walls with tractor pad gloves and boots. Such perfect attention to detail means only one thing."

"Obssessed fan syndrome," Fatima says.

I nod. This rookie assignment just got too complicated. I call up CCTV footage of Kremonash on my digital tablet and sure enough, the detail is appallingly real. Even worse, our A.I. Director of Law Enforcement Largren confirms at my digital query that the motorcade carrying the president's daughter has taken off to deliver her to Havorok University Hall. And our cosplay villain Kremonash is loitering on the university rooftops.

"Is there a hospital where the head of ER has a licence for a gun?" Fatima asks.

"It's far too late for that line of investigation," I say, staring at the costume of Mr Halroun's comicbook hero on a mannequin in the studio.

"Who's your comicbook hero?" I ask. We need to do better than to arrest "Kremonash" for loitering, and I have the worst idea on this planet.

"Karlqulon," he replies.

"And is that a real kevlar vest on his suit?" I ask, pointing at the costume.

"Yes," he replies.

"Since that costume is a fit for me, I need to wear it and be shuttle dropped on the roof of the university," I say. "I have to provoke Kremonash into engaging with me."

"Easily done," he says.

"You've got to be kidding me," Fatima says.

Which is why I find myself grappling with the super villain Kremonash on the university rooftops with Fatima acting as sniper with a Kudweister rifle.

I wrestle his gun from his hand as he kicks me in the face. Flung backward from the blow, I hear the "Crack" of Fatima's Kudweister.

Just a routine job.

Having spent most of our winnings from the reality show on intergalactic travel, all the way to Krempawar and back to the galactic hub, Fatima and I are at Labolink Employment Agency on Roghutov. Down to a pitiful handful of creds, we need immediate employment.

Director Orlando Rudd examines our written application on his desk holoscreen. We sit in his spacious office waiting pensively.

"You fit an extremely narrow occupation profile," he says. "The best thing on offer for your combined skill set is to work as field operatives for law enforcement."

"We'll take it," I say too quickly.

"You need to pass an operational test inside a simulation," he said. "Let me show you to the holocloud room."

He leads us out of his office, through halls filled with milling jobseekers filling applications on digital pads. We halt at a hexagonal opening beyond which are opaque clouds.

"Go through those clouds and you will emerge in a casino simulation, where your task is to find and neutralise the rogue player stealing from the house," he says.

We enter the thick holoclouds, losing all vision in the whiteness. We emerge in a casino, finding ourselves dressed in the suits of casino security guards. A small holstered blaster presses below my left shoulder.

"There are hundreds of people here," Fatima says, viewing the casino floor filled with tables, roulette wheels, and slot machines.

"Really only eight," I head straight for the high roller table. As part of security detail, I requisition chips and enter the game. I study the faces of the other eight players, but their nerveless deadpan faces reveal nothing.

As the croupier rakes in the chips, he glances oddly at the winner from the previous hand, a big gentleman with a generous girth. Is it normal for the croupier to make meaningful eye contact with a player?

I motion Fatima over, and hand her the cards dealt me.

"Take over my hand and go all in," I instruct her.

Princess Fatima takes my seat at the table and says, "I'm all in," as she shoves all our chips at the croupier.

This inspires the big gentlemen to declare, "I'm all in."

I wait for the croupier to rake in the chips before I dismiss him and take over as croupier. "Take a hike," I command over his anguished glare. Resigned, he retreats from the table.

I trust that the undealt cards are regulation compliant and that the big gentleman is not wearing an unsanctioned device, but the croupier must have an unsanctioned device and is offering visual cues to the big gentleman.

The shuffling machine delivers me the cards from beneath the level of the table.

"Wait a minute!" the big gentleman yells. "You can't take over as dealer. Not on, buster. I'm out. Give me back my stake!"

"No," I say. "What are you afraid of?"

"You're the one who should be afraid," he says, showing me his big palm, opening his fingers wide enough for the seam in his palm to split, revealing a hidden pocket from which pops a ring. This is an old guru trick. A surgical incision is made in a fleshy palm to create a pocket. Sacred ash or any small object is secreted in the pocket and sealed with breakable glue, enabling the guru to manifest "sacred ash" from his palms.

The man puts on the ring, forms a fist, and aims the rubied nozzle on the ring at me. A red beam from the nozzle strikes my chest, forming a red circle of light on my suit where my heart would be. The diameter of the red circle is the same as that of a tennis ball, but it shrinks steadily in size.

"You have one minute, before the beam shrinks to a cutting laser," he says. "Now, return the chips, or you will die. This is not a simulation. I know your sort. You are expendable operatives sent through a portal into the field, tricked into thinking you are entering a holocloud simulation."

"He's lying," Fatima says.

"No, he is not," the former croupier says, holding a blaster at Princess Fatima's temple.

"Don't believe any of this!" Fatima cries. "It's not real!"

"You have 30 seconds," the big gentleman says. "Your call. Your bet."

As the diameter of the beam narrows, I feel a burning on my flesh. I grab the man's chips and cast them before him. He raises his fist, sending a deadly red beam to the ceiling.

The scene fades, taking the casino and all its occupants, leaving me standing in my casual travel wear, and Fatima suspended in a seated position.

"I told you not to believe any of it!" she groans, returning to her feet.

Yes well, I blundered. Now, we are out of work and almost penniless. How are we going to eat?

Director Orlando Rudd enters the room clapping his hands in applause. What?

"Perfect judgement call," he says. "You bet the right way by putting a premium on your lives, saving you and your partner in the event it was real. A perfectly played hand. Well done."

I sigh with relief. Fatima shakes her head in disbelief.

In fine weather or storm

She falls far from the norm

Seeking an unattainable ideal

Forceful longing

For Mister Debonair out of a novel

Tell you a secret

He's a template patterned after formula

The real person is the boyfriend

Who snores in his sleep

Gawky and gauche

So does she keep

Hankering after the dreamy other

Paperback romantic hero

Smelling of distilled elegance

And high mannered refinement

Show him her garment

And he will grace it with refined complement

His composure and comportment

Is regal bearing

He'd squeeze the most exquisite savour

From left over herring

Posture aligned with the planet's axis

Physical symmetry modelled on Adonis

Nothing of flesh could compete

Only a 3D printer working a micro laser

Patterned by A.I. could sculpt his perfection

Yet if he were real and his manner more than affectation

He'd be more classy than Mister Darcy

The most incredible fantasy

Handsome buccaneer

Hair windswept and aligned

Singing an aria or oratorio

He may as well be Fabio

What's the deal?

What's better than real?

Goodbye darling

Love,

Horace

Forbid that I should so complain.

My lot is small

Considering the travails of a friend,

Barbara in chronic pain,

Yet she sheds not a tear.

In strength, does she not fear

Suffering that would crush a lesser.

Supported in her recliner,

Handkerchief still in her dresser,

She takes every step

To alleviate her condition,

And help others with disability.

Her compassionate mission,

In the promise of ethereal clarity,

Is to uplift those beguilded by despair,

Losing all hope for repair.

When I slipped into melancholy,

She reached out like Tara from the heavens,

Mesmerizing green flame, unearthly element,

Help offered from the firmament.

Beneath the stars, the sky held hope where darkness could never reign.

Lovingkindness and compassion in refrain.

I looked upwards for her message,

Reminded of her visage,

Her smile amid chronic pain,

Outlined in starry passage,

No comfort offered in vain.

Breath the foundation of her measure,

Inbreath and outbreath,

Cementing her composure.

Her compassion embraces everyone,

And everyone includes anyone,

You, me, and Xandra.

Bodhisattva in Shangri-La,

Inhaling cool Himalayan air,

Dear lady, I do care.

Incandescent

Queen of eternal night

Beacon in the blackest lair

Her powers pervade the blight

Heavy tainted terrain

Ridden with cobalt, nickel, and thallium

Upon encountering her

I need a valium

She is far from cold

Ebullient springs of warmth

Magnanimous overflow

But her mind has a different cast

A garden of black tulips

Coiled vipers at her ankles

Pounding cords

Strident electric guitar

A thunderous beat

Shaking dark sylvan domain

Dancing imps in her train

I cannot break from her gaze

My mind clouds into haze

Drawn helplessly to her throne

Sorrowful, she sings alone

Pleading eyed doe

Crumbling to her ardent call

An impulse to protect her

From the warping nettles

Of her variant mind

As she sings of sinking

And waiting in longing

For the one she dreams of

Who never arrives

And the blossom of what she has

Does not flourish forth

So I don my helm

Leap on piebald steed

Enter her domain

Fearing not the blackness

For within her knotted angst

And unfulfilled longing

Is the purest essence

Distilled from an aura

More fragrant than plush flora

Crossing the unbridged mile

Colliding with her aurora

Beyond gothic style

I love to see her smile

Incandescent

Queen of eternal night

Beacon in the blackest lair

Her powers pervade the blight

Heavy tainted terrain

Ridden with cobalt, nickel, and thallium

Upon encountering her

I need a valium

She is far from cold

Ebullient springs of warmth

Magnanimous overflow

But her mind has a different cast

A garden of black tulips

Coiled vipers at her ankles

Pounding cords

Strident electric guitar

A thunderous beat

Shaking dark sylvan domain

Dancing imps in her train

I cannot break from her gaze

My mind clouds into haze

Drawn helplessly to her throne

Sorrowful, she sings alone

Pleading eyed doe

Crumbling to her ardent call

An impulse to protect her

From the warping nettles

Of her variant mind

As she sings of sinking

And waiting in longing

For the one she dreams of

Who never arrives

And the blossom of what she has

Does not flourish forth

So I don my helm

Leap on piebald steed

Enter her domain

Fearing not the blackness

For within her knotted angst

And unfulfilled longing

Is the purest essence

Distilled from an aura

More fragrant than plush flora

Crossing the unbridged mile

Colliding with her aurora

Beyond gothic style

I love to see her smile

Incandescent

Queen of eternal night

Beacon in the blackest lair

Her powers pervade the blight

Heavy tainted terrain

Ridden with cobalt, nickel, and thallium

Upon encountering her

I need a valium

She is far from cold

Ebullient springs of warmth

Magnanimous overflow

But her mind has a different cast

A garden of black tulips

Coiled vipers at her ankles

Pounding cords

Strident electric guitar

A thunderous beat

Shaking dark sylvan domain

Dancing imps in her train

I cannot break from her gaze

My mind clouds into haze

Drawn helplessly to her throne

Sorrowful, she sings alone

Pleading eyed doe

Crumbling to her ardent call

An impulse to protect her

From the warping nettles

Of her variant mind

As she sings of sinking

And waiting in longing

For the one she dreams of

Who never arrives

And the blossom of what she has

Does not flourish forth

So I don my helm

Leap on piebald steed

Enter her domain

Fearing not the blackness

For within her knotted angst

And unfulfilled longing

Is the purest essence

Distilled from an aura

More fragrant than plush flora

Crossing the unbridged mile

Colliding with her aurora

Beyond gothic style

I love to see her smile