They

Reign

Down.

Like an occasional meteor shower.

pat!

pat!

pat!

Some, luckily roll back down.

Like a hoola-hoop skipping across a busy black-top

The others,

(The few, not-so-lucky ones)

Remain flush atop the plane of

Tar and tack,

After falling gently,

With the excess foliage that

Autumn always seems to offer,

 And now,

Flopping to a tired stop.

Coming to a temporarily

Infinite

Layover.

These formerly sky bound relics,

Eventually become permanent

Pancakes,

On a shingled stove top.

The former families of these, now

Unclaimed reclamations,

Don’t mourn their misplaced plastic companions.

But instead,

They marvel at how impossibly difficult it can be to draw one,

Let alone make

That same perfect circle

Fly.

If a casual man

Witnesses an even more

Casually dressed

(And quite a bit more daring)

 Man,

Kicking

And obliterating

A helpless sandcastle.

(A former kingdom of seashells.)

While wearing

A lazy pair of

Sandals.

It could seem ironic at the time.

But after a short meal,

(Heavy in melted dairy)

And the inevitable sting of the afternoon sunburn,

And a casual can of soda,

That contains more foam that the

Ocean

Itself.

This incident can then be dismissed as

Simple repetition.

As the wind blows, and as the cars swoosh

To and from work.

They float and curl,

Weaving and winding

Like a sideways snake,

Etching hieroglyphics

Onto scorching desert sand.

These silky husks,

Scattered about the

Silent sidewalks.

Although,

These reticulated relegations now simply  function as every day litter.

(While still maintaining their serpentine qualities.)

However,

They don’t lash out at the unguarded ankles of

Delirious passerby ‘s

Or battle a courageous mongoose.

Instead they lay like idle landmines,

Or a still garden-hose.

The condoms,

The bubble wrap,

And the blue tarps,

The blue snakes.

These great many snakeskins.

These venomous monuments,

Have become more abundant,

Than the skeletons of the scientists

That  bravely ventured to the

No-so-far-away

Medians,

Of the countless

Intergalactic intersections,

To orchestrate research on

These earthly abominations.

Copious notes

Should be taken

In the field,

Or fields,

That carefully study the scholastics,

Of a marble.

Because upon

An elaborate dissection,

Vast amounts of simultaneous similarities,

Can be found.

Between the marvelous marble,

And the frosty snow-globe.

Often more praise

Is given to the selfish,

And sometimes,

Sheepish blanket.

Then to the humble,

Campfire imagination

Of the one who

Conjured up the thought

Of what it actually takes,

To truly be warm.

At some point during the midnight hour,

A very tired gentleman,

Listens carefully,

(And fearfully)

To the mechanical hum,

Of the dryer tumbling slowly.

And just as he dips his toes into soggy puddles of distant dreams,

A turbulent whistling,

Whispers through the walls.

(And his incoherent ears)

Combined concurrently,

With the ever-so-faint

Ticking of the clumsy dryers

Wonderfully inaccurate dial.

(An apparent, yet distant cousin to the egg timer)

And a chorus of chores is born.

A symphony of starch.

This lint-less lullaby.

Delicately drying his wet and wrinkled brain.

As notes of lavender and wild cotton ambush his airways

And perpetrate his perspective.

And remind him,

(Whilst his soul is still sleeping quietly behind his own shut eyes)

That he had dried a shirt,

Whose only aspiration it had always been,

To be hung

(And treated)

Just the same,

As some of the more fortunate sweaters.

Watching the dancing silhouettes                    

Of  many bouncing bats

Waltzing  in the warmth of

The nighttime floodlight,

Is precisely

What’s happening

At the exact same time

Half-way across the

Spinning globe,

In a very dusty marionette theater.

That resonates with a similar

Smell of sparkling dust

From aging velvet curtains

And strands of wispy smoke

Stemming from

Recently blown out candles.

Sometimes

It will rain twice.

Certainly once,

From the lazy river

Up there in the sky.

Casually dripping into the mouths of the many,

(Undoubtedly impatient)

Earthly contestants.

And then a second time.

When the  residual rain,

Descended directly from the

Original,

Drips from 

Recently synthesized leaves,

And candy – striped

Parlor awnings

Onto weathered sidewalks.

And sometimes,

Fleeting streaks of reflected light,

Resemble ensembles of

Stray animals.

Dashing across the road

(Like swift ghosts)

Perhaps it is the

Splendid pie

(Buckled tightly in the back seat)

That truly warms the car.

Leaving behind it’s cherry scent

To permeate,

In the space between the seats.

Rather than the volcanic vents,

Who

Consistently wreak havoc,

On the long ago deserted dashboard.