RUNDELANIA

by Ricci W. Barnett

Conspiracy


Petty is the moment dreary;
Conspiracy,
all the bad stuff is probably true.
Iron deficient
modern masses,
how you do act
like vampires
who live
to swim in it.
Luscious, feeding currency;
Oh, the things you must see,
imbibing something clearly labeled
“mind altering”.
They go about,
anything could be counterfeit…
some witch scripts;
Buying, trading, selling out to.
They make some decisions,
perhaps more or less than you.
So I laugh and cry,
smile a touch;
For elsewhere my lot lies;
a poetess;
All the world my reluctant muse.
Even you.








Cheshier


Life;
Maybe this is just cake cutting Alice style
but I’d just like a bite of cake afterwhile.
Still it’s the scene’s tea party that makes me smile.
Drunk on life’s purr,
think we are the mouse in the sugar bowl.
Makes sense the least,
the smallest puzzeled piece,
itself seemingly incomplete,
that makes an image whole.
Standing on the threshold of something great
that just might break
one into two
before breaking through.
Here, to Alice in Wonderland, I do alludeas
well as the caterpillar and Cheshire Cat grinning about the truth.
How very Cheshier it is
of all of it
to agree
that it does not really matter which way one is going unless seeking a certain
destination…
Crazed and shaken is breathing now;
We’ll get through this something mistaken for something else somehow.
Right?
Left.
One of them best;
or perhaps not.
How very Cheshier.
Go ahead, throw it.
One more penny ought to do it.
Then we can all watch the fountain overflow together.
Ahh, there! To just breathe.
So hard to smile
standing single file
when life is a revolving door.
I want less of more.
Love is my sacred treasure,
to have a muse my pleasure.
We must be divinely inspiring
to keep the fire bright in thee.
Can you remember please
a time in your life
when you knew
peace?
Can a sunset still give your soul chills?
Or does it now take diamonds and emeralds?
As children we know how to save the world and grow;
It may seem long ago,
you can remember though.








Surrender


Lover, let me know
When you are smiling:
For I have become blind
From shock and tortures
Against my aching mind and chastity.
Tell me when you feel me pull at you -
Desire for that which
Is my being needing
To consume,
for I have become deaf
To the words
“The war is over”
Place torn, bleeded tissue in my hands
And let me feel
The white color of surrender
That will save me
When it is your flag whose end does call - tear falls
For the loss of our love
Once never befallen,
Now a secret broken and told

Ricci W. Barnett has a BA in human development and while a student pursued poetry that revealed and connected all people as sources of introspection. Poetry in Barnett’s collection, Selah, was primarily spoken word. This past year poems found their way into two previous publications: Conceit Magazine and Amulet Magazine.