This is a poem that I originally wrote for a Craft of Poetry class at university.
I know not where my feet shall tread, nor when I shall rest.
My twisted staff drives onwards, carving from my breast an
ancient tarmacked dusty plain beneath this hot spring sky.
Toes press on, they drag and groan. Time lumbers idly by.
My staff, a scythe, to fight my foe: birds who cannot fly.
My staff, a scythe, to fight my foe: men who cannot cry:
mesmers, clowns, good newlyweds. Time lumbers idly by.
Twilight calls me first by name, and then, a sweeter sound:
crickets, cricketing as they do, humming all around.
A blinding howl cleaves through my chest to burnt umber sky.
My soles leap beyond the Earth. Beasts scatter in reply.
My hound, my friend, turns away, disdain to even try.
My hound, my friend, gallops away. Alone now, I cry—
what star-flung souls are we when beasts scatter in reply?
A flavour: sharp and bittersweet. Nature makes protest.
On great hills beneath pale Moon, her trees are in distress.
Wrench up my palms! Damned despair! Beneath cavernous sky,
my feet hold fast. Staff creaks and moans. Thunder gone awry.
This flood, my tears, stains the ground, the sod we won’t abide;
this flood, my tears, enthrals the men, they whom woods defy:
Harlequins and City Folk—God’s blunder gone awry!