Tag: Fortune

The Poet In His Twilight Years

I have watched the black and white interviews
with the poet on his ramshackle farm,
quoting himself, word for word, his old muse
near-suicidal, disposed to self-harm,
and how dark are the later, silver years
when the laurels clutter the poet’s head;
it is enough to bring a man to tears,
if only allergies when eyes are red.
He writes so little verse, but acts a script
writ daily, with what life he may muster,
his mask such as is in a pharaoh’s crypt,
sometimes lacquered, sometimes just lackluster.

Of Wyrm And Man

Listen, we are the Ravens three

perched on our crooked oak tree,

laughing as the farmhouse flares

and smoke blackens evening airs

up toward the snake-ribbed sky—

sunny day, yet black each eye

that looks upon the charred husk,

empty carcass, cinder dusk,

while fields lay as wyrm-mauled mud,

the trenches deep, crops aflood,

as though young drakes raked their claws

to bleed earth while the outlaws

sought what fare there was to steal:

food and flesh and Fortune’s Wheel.

Shadows, thus, of Wyrm and Man

are much the same at a span

and engulf all caught within:

wide as the world, black as sin,

and cast from the light of day,

perching to stay where they may.

Hearken!  We are the Ravens three—

greed, selfishness, cruelty,

and we will perch and laugh more,

perhaps near your own front door