Helical Misconduct
byFalling branches
Brittle limbs of men from favour fallen
Avalanches
Little rhododendron savour
Do I waver?
Leaves of oak
Fragile thoughts of souls rejected calling
Softly croak
Reptile rosewood, calm, dejected
As the wreck did?
Sunken timber
Cool amphibious rose, the dew of morning
Coldest ember
Father Neptune's frosty sewers
When he abjures?
Trees of winter
Falling snow on burning coastline
Flaming splinter
Eyeless, silent snowfall turning
Like exiles yearning?
Roots and branches
Probing tentacles that crawl to freedom
Avalanches
Snowy fates no man can alter
Do I falter?
I had not thought to see the sun
For I was often told
That who would strive to make him run
The moment that the milky tun
Held no more than it could hold
In vain could such as he be bold.
Of cold I would not suffer much
For often I had heard
That he who flees from winter's clutch
And shuns that season's temper such
As chills both beast and bird
Shall lose the gift of word.
Sing no more, ye citadels!
Let silence guard your walls!
Sound not the bells
Wait! and wait till darkness falls
And casts his spells.
Then empty cells
Frequented by the tyrant king who calls.
He waits; and waits till daylight comes
In halls of Hell he waits add softly hums
And wordless sings
Of sundry other things
And when the parched moon is wet
He'll not regret
His mended wings
And fly to where no nettle stings.
ENVOI
I thrust
Into my sight the sun that thoughtless tells I must.
O Man! What deeds thou dost within thy prison bound
Auguries and titles are to thee a spectral sound
An isthmus of crustaceous shields, of creatures sevenfold
Which thou wouldst never give, nor ever deign to hold.
O Man! Thy time within these shades is but a paltry day,
The future holds no promise now, and difficult the way.
Unending pleasantries will not suffice to bring me joy
For I can never be a man, though I am now a boy,
And not the type my father's wife has wanted to employ.
My childish feet can climb no obstacles to age,
The soundless walls of adolescence make my youth a cage
Wherein my fallen plumage strews and fouls the floor
And makes me sick for days on end - the sanitation's poor.
The empty move, arid going backwards, treading through my days
I find no fevered felonies or visions out of phase,
1 leave behind no fellows and my visitors I scorn
As fearlessly I start the quest to find where I was born
I stumble orphaned through my fields of cankered corn.
So, man, thou knowst not whither thou art led:
The elixir of exiles, the mead of men, the dead
Are all beyond thy reach. The only fate
Is standing day by day before the only gate
Awaiting one whose lazy sons outlive
The grind of life. No more than gulls and sickness give
The triple reed. I live my life in vain
Beside the isn't line, await the be-less train
To take me where my life may start again.