Reflections of a Sophist by Dan Pettee

Dog Teeth and Flowers by Randall Arthur
                                                                                                                                                           

                                                          Reflections of a Sophist 

                                                          In due time,
                                                          tomorrow never comes; 
                                                          the dominance of dust intrudes
                                                          and images reduce themselves 
                                                          to blurred particles of non-meaning;
                                                          bodies burn out like lights,
                                                          ideas wash away like sand-penned words
                                                          in freeze-frame thunderstorms
                                                          scudding across a midweek afternoon;
                                                          a woman’s thigh fails to flash
                                                          within the lowland’s lassitude,
                                                          and all one’s erstwhile reckless rhymes
                                                          are metronomic breaths, mnemonic nuances,
                                                          nothing more.
                                                          And yet…
                                                          when destiny,
                                                          like some ambrosial opiate,
                                                          beckons to one’s inner thirst,
                                                          who among us can resist?
                                                          The wagon wheels go tumbreling,
                                                          and time’s
                                                          the needle’s eye which no one passes through…

                                                          ____________
                                                          Dan Pettee  

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