Confections Galore!

Here at this store,
the children wait on the floor
and shiver & shake to the core,
while their parents wait by the door

A rotund man named Billy Tudor,
wearing a lab coat made of velour,
stands by the bins that pour
forth jelly beans, gummy bears & candy corn.

I hate to be such a bore,
though I heard of this cliché in the old lore,
speaking of “a kid in a candy store,”
who will quiver & quake and ask for more,

I have not found this place, nor
do I ever expect to find it.

Wide awake

There’s something I was going to write
About the state where you are not quite
Asleep nor are truly awake. From this
Space it is easy to fall back into one or the other.
I don’t know the name, and I didn’t want to call
It something like a liminal space. Otherwise,
The whole thing breaks down. And it did.
This was going to be used as a metaphor
For how I was going through life. Until I
Met you. When you awake from this space,
Your bearings are shot. You struggle to gain
Comtext for the situation: Where you are
And what you are doing. Meeting you was like
That. And now I have had that jolt and I am
Wide awake.

These are the writings of John Edgar Mihelic.

Some may know him by other names.
These ring true as all the rest.
If you know his smiling eyes,
and deep heavy laugh, you know
only half the man. You don’t know him
when he is brooding, solitary, and alone.