“Anodyne”

Anodyne, how and when the clouds turn aluminum-colored

For the air which was so fragrant sang petrichor and autumn,

Howls where eternity once belonged gave no one, tastes rainfall

As silvered firmament of washed-out denim, hand-me-down heaven

Descended globs of jellyfish crystal, translucent white leathery ice

With lightning strikes if carnival lights, so was there a reason why

Anyone hasn’t looked yet? Smoking chalk, ghosts of ancestral spirits

Whom ember from the palm of your fingertips, akin Aphrodite abbess

All-the-while our windowless overcast obscured, mired by sirens blur

Somewhere betwixt consciousness and purgatory, blooming memory

Before dawn’s half-light and yawning sunrise birthed turquoise skyline

Cross-legged talks over lawn palaced by caladium, Jupiter and Cassiopeia

As whispered vespers of condensation furled, coiled upwards as steam

Whose breath of the wind prayed, whose milk of mist mimicked reeds

Alongside thistles of treeless branches bestrewn like ash and snowflake

Serried remains, across plains of cemetery periphery and glass houses;

It’s as if that road went on forever, even if it wound up going nowhere

Whereupon cigarettes and vape pen cartridges were casketed dormant,

Listening to old music that came out before both were even born yet,

Talking about nothing although it felt something important, didn’t it?

For which gradient sunsets were just that and nothing more than,

Whereby instant messages heralded invites, strands for connection

Days when spending time felt more like wasting it, shadowed by adolescence

To talk about the world and feel like there could be something drawn from it,

Cul-de-sac vestibules fueled by Marlboro Reds, American Spirits and Code Red

Reach up into the horizon, proclaiming the words from your lips to our creator,

Back when the days involved surviving past noon and Silent Hill on Playstation 2

Anodyne, Adeline and her forgotten, endless, transient stretches of Valhalla in time.

© 2025, A. M. D’Angelo