Up In The Air

There’s a restaurant in Niagara Falls
that sits atop a tower more than 60 feet

up in the air.

Slowly the restaurant revolves in a circle
revealing the stunning unique terrain
to the patrons inside.

A lovely young woman
is sitting across the table from me,
a high-school senior, like myself.

Our orbits have been intersecting
for the past three years,
a conjunction reflecting the transit of Venus.
Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion.

The transition to adulthood is intense
and still uncertain.
But the subtle music of her smiling eyes
beguiles the flight of troubled times.
Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion.

The waiter brings a fat red menu,
boasting a black tassel and slim straight string.
We are easily the youngest couple
caught in this tourist trap.

Were the lobsters on our dinner plates ever tourists
before the last slip of the trap’s latch?
We’re drinking champagne, the bubbles rising slowly and gently
as the yellow elevators riding on the side of the tower.

Although the views outside the window are spectacular,
the attention of my lens is an attempt to apprehend
all the benefits and blessings that her presence could foretell

to behold and be held

We are all going,
Going round and round
in circles

up in the air

(c) Ken Sullivan, 2020

Brevity is not the Soul of Whitman

Brevity is not the Soul of Whitman
                Onandonandonandon

And

                Onandonandonandon

Should we create an AlAnonandonandon
for writers who just don’t know when to quit, man?

                 Yet what 
exquisite ecstatic embracing engaging enraging enraptured
enthusiasm. 

You may decry it
You can’t deny it 
So go and try   it
On
For sighs. 

(c) Ken Sullivan 2022

Within My Room the Waves at Night

Within my room the waves at night,
Compelled by fate to fly and flow
Revive my life and times with sight

So thus past lovers come to light
To tell me what I aught to know.
Within my room the waves at night

Contain consequences contrite 
When words and deeds I would forego
Revive my life and times with sight.

And yet some memories are bright, 
With love of the club Hillsboro. 
Within my room the waves at night

Contrive to strike the balance right
When recollections of long ago
Revive my life and times with sight

The days like waves are grace in flight
Compelled by fate to fly and flow
Within my room the waves at night,
Revive my life and times with sight.

A Socially Distant Enchantment Dance

This social distance is a bore, 
How will we live without some kissing?
There is a new friend I adore.
This social distance is a bore, 
She moves me to my very core,
But something wonderful is missing. 
This social distance is a bore, 
How will we live without some kissing?

 

(c) Ken Sullivan 2020

A Wonderful Time

Don’t tell me you had a wonderful time,
For you make both wonderful and time such
Forlorn felons, who would commit a crime,
stealing the “T” from an enchanted touch.

Hummingbirds nurse, numbing words heard curse, 
Singly sadly seeking solace strong.
In flight at night, contrite condemned to worse, 
Rehearsing certain sorrow’s stinging song.

Dolorous haze, who hath hold o’er our days, 
Desiring depriving depravity. 
Thus demon distance soon makes his displays,
Raids betraying a frayed heart’s cavity. 

Our time with wonder full should ever be, 
But thus expressed, it rests a nullity. 

Fear No More the Heat of the Frost

Fear no more the heat of the Frost, 
Nor the dreaded desert’s dazes. 
Pay no heed to need or cost, 
Feed no more on lover’s gazes. 
Suspend the quest of recompense
For the loss of innocence. 

In no senses live a lie, 
Tread your tracks with breadth and balance
Wonder not the wander why, 
Whither whither with her talents. 
When a neighbor takes offense, 
Mourn the loss of innocence. 

How sapient is sapiens, 
Paragon of genus homo?
Radiant in the pretense 
Of what it is we think we know. 
Will there be a future tense
For those who chose to build a fence
And scorn the loss of innocents?

If You’re Going to Boil a Lobster

if you’re going to boil a lobster, 
let me make a small suggestion
on a bright, Spring college morning, 
a beautiful young woman

            and I 

decided to embrace
a new adventure

let’s cook a lobster

her senior suite contained both
a stove and a fulsome pot 

we found a fresh fish market near
and purchased our brilliant red friend

the water boiled
the pot got hot

and then we made a great mistake

we put the tail into the pail
instead for the head

the sound of the scream resounds in a dream
that repeats and repeats
and

repeats

Holy Tomato Sauce

Holy Tomato Sauce, 
All those Kardashians, 
Peddling influence, 
Clothing designs, 
Unreal reality.
Holy Tomato Sauce, 
All those Kardashians, 
Selling celebrity, 
Steatopygiafied
In the behinds.

Life

If life is a comedy
for those who think
            and
a tragedy
for those who feel,

what is life
for those of us
who feel we think
             or
think we feel?