Feature Image Above: Created by Copilot and me.
This poem grew from four comment‑poems I left on two fellow poets’ pages — David’s words sparking the first and third stanzas, Nancy’s the second and fourth. When I brought those fragments together, they unfolded into a small theatrical wandering: a pantomime of thresholds, ascents, and the strange choreography of time.
In Stanza Order:
1. David; The line moves, or: By inertia – The Skeptic’s Kaddish
2. Nancy; Thresholds – The Elephant’s Trunk
3. David; My years slowly, or: I walk – The Skeptic’s Kaddish
4. Nancy; Ascension – The Elephant’s Trunk
A Pantomime, or, A Playwright
Sublime is time;
heeds no rhyme,
beyond our imaginary climb.
Somewhere we await a final line –
or is life just a pantomime?
Oh, I see doorways,
stairways,
and causeways
These days
I’m living in a hazy daze –
or am I wandering in a maze
of poetic cliches
and unfinished essays?
Do we climb the incline
to our ordained shrine?
Or is the causeway a surreal design,
a decline into a magnetic mine?
Under a dome of flawless white,
being elevated toward the uncorrupted light –
the beginning of a poet’s last moonlit playwright
From Lisa O’Neill’s Black Sheep — “Do you want a story before you sleep?” A fitting echo for this small pantomime of doorways and moonlit climbs.
If you wish to read Lisa O’Neill’s outstanding “Black Sheep” lyrics, click on this Link >> https://genius.com/Lisa-oneill-black-sheep-lyrics
Ivor Steven © January 2026
Ivor.Plumber/Poet 