A Strick

I call her a turtle when she retreats into her hardened shell.

Her disappearance… somber and distant…a funeral bell.

Wisconsin white witch, now merely a forgotten spell.

Tired of dealing with Sun Devils in this Arizona hell.

Her last words to me on a Thursday are but a death knell.

I make up random things to say to her just to get a reply.

These precise seconds become decades when they pass me by.

I guess we’ll all fade slowly into the same northern sky.

Comets burned out with a nervous laugh and flickering sigh.

Each time she disappears part of my universe must die.

All of us brokers scratching and clawing our way to the top.

Real-life movies -lackluster scripts that ultimately flop.

The setting here in Phoenix isn’t the right backdrop.

In her movie I am just an old, dusty, & used-up prop.

Alone in studio storage with the janitor bucket and mop.

She acts confused when she’s coerced by the day to choose

And yet all the upstart entrants clamor to pay Lordship dues.

Many have tried to make it to knight and many will ultimately lose.

In her tower fortress she hides in dwindling shadows and dim hues.

Still she alone walks the stone corridors in her ruby red shoes.

She worships the dark wizard, whom has cast his iron spell the worst.

She feels her fairytale love is destined only to be dashed and cursed.

Perhaps he doesn’t actually care that she’d already chosen him first.

Around her the ancient forests wither away in their perpetual thirst.

She passes by us serfs with the blackness of a carriage hearse.

The months forge ahead bringing storms from the Aleutian chain.

The ice encapsulates, holding captive, the North American plain.

The swirling winds hold mysteries…myths of a time arcane.

Ashley revels the nights away because the revelry conceals the pain.

Still, the Wisconsin Empress consolidates her Arizona reign.

I, too, grow wealthier… more insatiable dividend interest accrued.

My visions of her these days… increasingly cloudy… increasingly skewed.

My focus on this currency has my inclination increasingly shrewd.

The green ivy has grown upon my heart and upon my aging mood.

My life as Jekyll long ago dead… My allegiance to Hyde renewed.

Daily she stresses and takes orders from her unholy boss.

He cares not for her…but rather his own profit and loss.

His lies and hypocrisy hang upon her …like an albatross.

The greenery grows voraciously all around her… Irish Moss.

Meanwhile her Polaris shines so intermittently like semi-gloss.

She bids farewell to another knight with a wave of her chalice.

High upon her throne… in her remote and sedimentary palace.

Another fairytale dream… down the rabbit hole with Alice.

Years of battle and war…her heart now indifferent and callous.

Wisconsin lights the way home again with aurora borealis

She’s going to NYC for NYE because she can’t back out.

And when the ball drops…as the revelers scream and shout.

She’ll be drowning away in a kiss…in the fear and in the doubt.

The semblance of the whiskey love… awash with porter and stout.

Gothic moneyed towers fall with the 2017 confetti strewn about.

I toss and turn now… when I think of the frosty Wisconsin snow. Her blood…like her life… ages with the grace of a fine Bordeaux.

Her light, like mine, fades into the mysterious snowy alpenglow.

The greatest of kingdoms fall to the eons… melting so ever slow.

I wonder if I will recall her monarchy then…as I now know.

Perpetual war in the heavens rages on painfully still.

Great Northern forest timber cut down… before heading off to the mill.

The enemy plots against her majesty again…only to maim and to kill.

Like all of us broke brokers that sold out for a last trick or thrill.

Pure Wisconsin snow fades away on her frosty window sill.

Spring brings the notion that all is not ultimately lost.

Yes, the horror, the trembling… came at a terrible cost.

But…remember green ivy dies first in the icy Wisconsin frost.

Our lives burned, expelled, and thus purified… like jet exhaust.

Our hearts travel a trillion stiches with the miles embossed.

So when the jet stream rages at the flimsy airframe walls.

And the Wisconsin snow more swiftly, and desperately, falls…

When hungry wolves and jealous elk let out their ageless calls….

As Lake Michigan whips up winter waves and twilight squalls.

She’ll be a warm winter memory which my own heart recalls.

She shall go now regardless and soar like the baroness of the skies.

Within the fuselage belly of the great iron eagles… she will rise.

Chasing the stars… as they spin and twirl in her doe brown eyes.

Telling your wooded secrets and listening to their city martini lies.

Looking out small plane windows as our starry time flies.

Underneath you… will be the land of the almost -brave

As we toil in the native dirt and continue to harvest only deprave.

Working for our salvation …while hoping it’s ourselves we save.

With different destinies and fates…it’s all eventually concave.

We all crash together in the end… like a beach and a wave.

Until Then, I carry her majesty’s memory...upon my own passage to the grave…