Casting Runes

 

What price the steaming goat entrails

Coiling on a dusty Roman street?

The clouded mysticism of a crystal ball

Peered into for some future comfort?

The divination of ancient Gods

To tell us where our slouching bodies go?

 

The smoke and mirrors of

fortune teller, crystal-gazer, spaewife, seer,

soothsayer, sibyl, clairvoyant, prophet,

oracle, augur, and visionary.

 

When life is forward motion

With a rock rolling at your back

Down a tunnel the size of that rock

No way to the past.

 

An onward trudge in darkness

Where the older you get

The smaller the steps

Because you know that somewhere ahead

There will be no more solid footing

Just a drop

 

So you live your life

And see the pretty world

And all it’s gaudy sights

While ever your feet touch terra firma.

In contact with the earth.

 

Until that rolling rock

Pushes you over the edge

And you are falling falling

And you know that when you hit

Whatever is below

That rock will slam into you

And there will be nothing

But the dark

 

What price then

The Tarot Cards?

The magic stones?

The lines on a hand?

Your day or month of birth?

 

What price then

The future?