Movie Pitch as Movie Title: Laconic Tagline

Today's stories are not told,
They are ordered.
You have a choice of four endings
(Light, dark, green, or extra crispy)
Between white-bread leading actors,
The same old sideplots
and some stale, withered toppings for color.
The modern movie is not written,
It is assembled, like a value meal,
Every bit as healthful and unique.

As Separate Springs Turn To Separate Summers

I have seen you before,
But rarely this beautiful.
I have seen you before,
But rarely this happy.
I have seen you before,
With others just like him.
I've seen more than enough
To know it won't last long.
I'm glad you're happy now,
But not as glad as when he's gone.

Man/Island/Sand

I am a man.

I am an island.

I am as sand,

Too gritty to be trod upon for long,

Unbreakable against the ocean,

The waves of fluid opinion.

I am a man.

I am an island.

I am as sand.

Wicked Cool

I'm a writer, a poet, always carrying my poetic license,
But I pretend to be cool, fool some people sometimes.
When I admit it, people I know say I'm fine.
I've a mirror, so I know that. Cool's not so quickly defined,
So let's ask the mirror. Come, you know half the lines!

“Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who's the fairest of them all?”

Then the mirror is heard to howl,
“What's fair elsewhere, here is foul,
So I don't know, but you'll do for now.”

An Instant and An Eternity

For someone with no short-term memory,

Five years are an instant and an eternity

In which to make even obvious changes.

I am not what I used to be,

Even if I am exactly who I always was.

I must creatively clothe my personality,

To show the world someone who looks different.

For someone with no short-term memory,

Five years are an instant and an eternity

In which to make even obvious changes.

For someone with no short-term memory,

I was once more than the sum of my parts,

But now the sum of my parts is much less,

and I feel like nothing at all, and I must change,

Just to be something, even if it is something else.

For someone with no short-term memory,

Two weeks are an instant and an eternity

From which changes now bear down on me,

Though I could not be more unfeeling.

I have yet to catch myself savoring;

Perhaps I will also forget to miss the old same.

Red Light/Green Light

I don't see traffic

As a little army of oversized ants marching,

Though it is,

Nor as the fires of industry,

Parceled out into moments and pieces,

Though that's what it be.

No, that line of cars making its way

Is no more or less than a series of breaks

Eagerly waiting to drain my day

From the thousand cuts of a thousand short waits.

The Flying Dutchman

The world is full of strange stories,

So many theories thrown aside,

But little is new that is not ancient.

Little is dead but not waiting to return.

Now hallowed minds are hollow caves

In which strange wisdom hibernate.

In a time when the old gods are new-age,

When Genesis and exogenesis both strain into view

I still managed to pick something not on the menu.