Surprise

Surprise

Equanimity is like that—
great for day by day.
Triceratops comes out to play
among the smilers, scoffing
at his claimed reality;
the screams are left there,
hanging for a time,
when creativity refuses
to be stuffed back in the box.

The poor old fellow, horns and all,
will not be taken seriously,
no matter how he mugs
before the camera; believers yawn
until the soldiers join the march
behind the flags and pretty girls,
their pretty legs--and then the band!

Our ugly, born again,
intrepid hero with his plated armor
never had a chance;
it is his destiny to be unloved
and munch his vegetables,
and sink into the pit
that feeds the armed machine

far past the Pleistocene
that hovers on his dream.
~