Reflections on a Nobleman

I ask a lord for rest, Says I,

deprived! I’ve wanting faith.

nay squalor?  Says he,

nay, you pray me, kneel

And so I knell.

 

Terse fingers meant for clay

(they say, rough fingers meant for clay)

Brush dirt from woolen backs.

painless death n’grass in heav’n

bleeding lambs don’t  ask for much.

 

“We shall fall between the stones of

Trickling clay, massed amongst the bones

of our fathers…”

 

We’d rather not scatter

So we roam in waiting circles,

With the faded day like cattle,

silent ill, dull ache.

fickle smiling passers-by

green without faces cringe as they come

clean sleeved they watch our crook’d step

crying naught, or maybe stalled from fireburns

hands made for rolled tobacco.

 

“Seek shelter sweetly,

Do not fear but do not listen

Rather look up! Up! Wards to the sky.”

 

see I quake not from spring’s sun fleeing

for by the day I find no light to speak of;

embossed sentiment gives

daytime’s crooks no abdication. 

And though my memory’s felled

I do recall their swinging arm.

 

Ere dawn the hogs n’horses scuttle,

newly wary of the clouds,

and driving stake deep into mud

farmers look at me aside.

Yea I have sought a further nest,

Below the topsoil ‘s veil.

Through clotted veins of

Runoff just as much their soul

Is in decay.

“Cry not in the early, naught in the evenin’,

Reach up and shape the air

With what obliterates your mind and

Body’s rest in time.”

 

Where scholars ‘preciate the salve

I’ll chafe and rough with age, leave

Hearkening herd at bay. For…nothing

Saves or squanders, see.

The damned-ed wait their term in company

Low.

 

Buried but not forgotten rots the time away

To sort the lives left living sorely,

I hold ‘em in remorse.

And as for you, the elm trees sway towards

Foundation s far from luxury’s thirst

Only the quitting day’s last words

will give to you a muse.