A Testament to Nevermore

Cypress on the Moon by Chilly Billy Howell

“The days of wine and roses laugh and run away like a child at play
Through the meadow land toward a closing door
A door marked “nevermore” that wasn’t there before
The lone-ly night discloses just a passing breeze filled with memories
Of the golden smile that introduced me to
The days of wine and roses and you.” — Johnny Mercer

The good life’s momentary peaks rarely linger
Fondly treasured and thankfully remembered
Meteoric splashes
Temporal ripples
Disappearing coils of memory
Buried ‘neath life’s encroaching ugly
Life inhered in soused furrows
Chronic trench foot a constant companion
Essence mired in immutable vicissitudes of laboring paradox
Purposeful pilgrims trekking the unknown
Seeking solace from occluding portals of promise
Nevermore fissures linking past to present
Shuttering forever serene sentiments
Birthed in prelapsarian innocence
Nurtured briefly at leisure’s bosom
Fattened with the milk of specious safety
Protected by fading veils of false security
Wine’s uncorking a temporal solace for wounded souls
Now a constant mocker
For those too lean to metabolize
Roses resplendent
Nascent leaves of saturated velvet
Softening eyes into crinkling lines of pleasure
Ending desiccated and weary
Receding aromas bereft of consolation
Fluttering from verdant meadow to vales steeped in darkness
The Days of Wine and Roses an apparition
Once a golden smile
Now a testament to Nevermore…