What marvels are the laid up fates of men
Shuffled like cards, dealt out, in who knows when?
Each random room encountered leaves its mark
The bolt slides sideways, then the waiting dark.
Knew us, loved us, those who despised us, too,
Leave memories in the bones and sinews
Contracting our future selves to behave
In signature and predictable ways.
Forgotten contacts formed the character
That names the destiny of each actor.
Free will, it seems, is an illusory
Frill, and our choices are a penury
Since visitors to rooms as fill this house
Ordained our course and every step allowed.

What need for ghosts in attic space
When memory itself can haunt a place?
Discontiguous, unlike door linked rooms,
Its tale weaves time and space like yarn thru loom.
A thread that connects fiery teenage lust
To playroom landscapes mounted in the dust
Next, darting over all to sing a rhyme
From Sunday last, counted in six-eight time.
One might figure if by following doors
And occasional stairways, floor to floor,
The tale unfolds in scheme chronologic,
But the truth is like mem’ry it’s spastic
Since time be assured is a mere construct
As first and last words on a page instruct.

Consider this while here and there you go
As we assess the crusts of what you know,
Leftover from the appetite you sate,
For heaps of flesh and blood upon a plate,
A bit of quid pro quo to spice a game
Of which of Batman's villains can you name?
Some trivia we'll get to soon enough
That unlocks locks and panels when it's rough:
A bladed pendulum approaching near
Or poison trickling into Hamlet's ear,
The sand accumulating in a glass
Like numbskulls at the back of teacher's class.
So, try to make out every phrase for once
Not only gloss the pictures and be done.

For instance, it's the VESTIBULE you're in,
And all you need to enter is a PIN:
The which of comic villains he might be
Who poses punnish questions on a spree.
Hereafter every page requires a code
To activate a link in this abode;
Should we mention you might also make a map,
Or suit yourself--we wouldn't want to sap
Your patience with these puzzles for the brain:
The Interwebs are packed with antic games
And this just one upon the busy heap,
A writhe of flashing lights and flapping wings,
That shouldn't want to make you think a thing,

Flibbertigibbet you. And this recalls
A final word before we see you off,
A coy apology for clumsy form
Of rhymes in second person 'til you squirm.
We wouldn't ordinarily compose
In other than a blank and pristine prose
Or tire the captive reader with the kind
Presuming he's the subject of each line.
Let's write this for a culture meted out
By Comcast, Fox, and advertising clout
And be no ingenue pretending not
To know the single reader that we've got,
Who likes a leering verse whose subject be
A twisting fable starring "Me! Me! Me!"