Millstone Of The Millennium
Turn and turn, grind thus on,
Millstone of The Millennium,
dawn to dusk, dusk to dawn,
on and on, ad infinitum.
Grind to dust the Summer’s crops
from which we may harvest hopes anew
with wheat and barley and corn and hops,
all watered with emotion’s bitter dew
for a drink to dull our tired minds
and our hearts beneath the relentless stone
that turns and rolls and chews and grinds
until the day we drink alone—all alone.

Fog And Frost
Age is ever creeping
like a fog
or the frost
when the woods are sleeping,
each black log
coldly glossed;
and blearily peeping
through the bog
are the lost—
those who are weeping
from the fog
and the frost.

Digested
Make no mistake,
employment is a snake
which slowly devours
your life, the hours
allotted by luck
and we are all stuck
in its long throat,
coil by coil, rote by rote,
our own time divested,
our essence digested.
For what is toil for us
except Ouroboros?
We eat our own tail,
end to end, without fail,
so we may “survive”—
a dilemma which I’ve
concluded self-defeating,
like a candle fleeting
as it burns on both sides,
the flame meeting at the ides.
Ours is such a Fate
as an entry-exit gate
whereby we earn our stay
only by going away
down the acidic chute,
that terminal route
that brings us to our end
by the rigors which rend
for us a life our own—
an unaffordable loan.
And sacrifice is sacrifice,
whether for virtue or vice,
for yourself or for others
its constriction smothers.
Past, Future, Present—
whether sad, bland or pleasant,
we all feed a python,
Time’s fanged pylon
through which we travel
as we unravel
to die with so much giving
to earn for ourselves a living.