Resting through a cold, while breathless,
he lay in a reverie of lassitude,
Knowing the pure pleasure of
a good excuse for sloth,
And, drifting into that lethean land,
saw himself lying on the sand
By a grotto, when from behind a pillar
seductively stepped a nubile nymph,
Clothed only in the breeze
and a garland of golden kelp.
As she approached, she dissolved
into a dog who shook herself
Into a storm of salty drops
while seals on their cozy shelves
Bayed and barked their laughter,
awakening him to the pressing need
To breathe and find his way
back to his blue-skyed world.
The image came from this site.
The pretty engineer took his arm
at the tunnel entrance;
They walked a mile
into the middle of the Andes,
into a frigid inferno.
"We've passed the border", she said,
facing the whine and grind
Of a giant rolling worm,
flashing sparks and lightening,
as it pushed into Argentina.
They returned to sunlight and ice,
and she handed him a stone,
An unsuccessful flirtation
as he released her hand,
but kept the rock.
She stammered about sensitivity
to air, humidity, temperature,
"In a hundred years it will be gone,
unlike love...".
He shrugged and left.
The stone, grey and white,
sat for months on a shelf,
Unchanging, leaving only dusty fingertips.
He was relieved when it was lost --
A century was too long to wait.
The feldspar image is copied from the Minerals Database of the "Minerals Education Coalition"
Bluster & Absurdity 