Once upon a time I read
Yellowed pages on my bed
Of magic snakes and daffodils
And gypsies selling candied pills
Till I stumbled on a poem
Ancient treehouse I called home
The beats sounded on the floor
As I moved from door to door
Verses lured me into rooms
Which I swept with gilded brooms
A poem cleansed of her passion
Now a whitewashed white mansion
Where I lived with all my books
Moral tales without their hooks
Then one day I went upstairs
On the scent of ancient pears
Stepped inside a hidden space
Saw a lady in her place
Sitting on the wood threshold
Between French doors carved with mold
The trellis behind her back
Weathered by old dreams intact
For here the past is present
A kept woman with a scent
Black hair wrapped tight in a bun
But loosed by the telltale sun
Alone in her soft red dress
Her lips balmed with watercress
A contrast in shade and light
Luminous with heaven’s night
Her profile a pensive pose
Compliments of love’s repose
Until she turns and faces me
Like I’m her glass menagerie
Stay here with my other toys
She intones with stately poise
And I shall turn your soft dream
Into one last wretched scream
Burn this comfy home you’ve made
Into dust you cannot spade
And so I flee from her stare
Nothing else for which I care
Horror guides my every move
From this place I must remove
What’s left of my old tired soul
And my heart a smoldered coal
When I reach the welcome door
And try to flee the waxed floor
I find the knob will not budge
My soul condemned by the judge
This whitewashed home a prison
Escape no more my vision
As I spend my endless time
Here in this perfected rhyme
