We had all the time in the world ....

A ghastly footnote
in the history of Oh No! Theatre,
Diana Rigg
with the neat, red hole
in her left temple
and the tell-tale trickle
of theatrical blood on her Oh So
perfect cheek,
George Lazenby, small fry,
Oh No Seven eyes glazed,
mumbling his lines
for a long gone audience.
The camera lurches back,
revealing the silver-grey Aston Martin,
pristine, intact on a lonely road.
Louis Armstrong begins to growl …

There is always a place for the frivolous as long as we remember that it's there to distract us from reality!

Fragment from the buried city

A sparrow on the terracotta wall
Picks listlessly at stone fruit,
Waiting for the black sky to fall.

A child curled tightly in a ball,
Lovers entwined mute,
Beneath a sparrow on the terracotta wall.

Deaf to the strident warning call,
Insensitive to the subtle scent of soot,
Not knowing how the black sky would fall,

They found oblivion, when they thought they had it all,
That inner wealth beyond dispute,
The painted sparrow on the terracotta wall.

Now ashes form their funeral pall.
They lie amid abandoned loot
Lost at the moment the black sky began to fall.

No matter how sweet the song of the flute,
When you smell burning, face the truth
Or share the fate of the sparrow on the terracotta wall
Lost in time when the black sky began to fall.

First post for a while. The picture is from a fresco at the Villa Oplontis, near Pompeii.