Abduction from the Seraglio

CLACK! Belmonte and Pedrillo freeze so still as ladder clatters:
CRIME, if they are caught, cannot express how severe the indictment.
GENRE? Singspiel, opera, or proto-musical, if it matters.
HAREM, awful fate! Free Constanze and Blonde from this enfrightment.

We were one

CLUNG we to good news of union past,
SYNOD yet revealed our sundering cracks.
MELEE of coveting passions, rivaling formulae to judge, to condemn.
CLANG, closing bell! Sound the prayers we cannot pray to bless.

Great Chain of Being

NEVER at rest in Dasein, I endeavor method to cope:
STAVE off malaise by contemplating life’s smaller scales.
LOUSE, humble, despised, but a live link in being’s chain.
QUALM lingers. My own link so proximate to louse.

Noir

FOYER: 4 am, detectives gathered.
PRONE body motionless. Cameras click.
STERN presences all; a death is never just itself, meaning: sweat
SHEEN on faces in bad lighting is of over work, but also recognition.

Pogrom

RABBI, hiding at forest’s edge, watching pogrom’s smoke.
SUING for justice a bitter thought; none would take the case.
RISEN in his mind are God’s angels, appearing for the scattered.
SWOOP down, Michael and Gabriel: proclaim God our protection!