Poems: Volume I

The Trees of Amber Leaves

To what was his pleasure owed?

To what lasting triumph did it contribute?

Menaced by impunity and undignified privilege;

Cast out by the elders of his country.

Scattered in mind, whilst flailing his limbs;

Bound by the borders of the shoreline.

Dividing his time between the thrill of the forage

And a vengeance of frothing futility.

The west wind which stings as it grazes his face,

Braces for night;

And mauls all illusion.

For four months, enslaved, in arid isolation;

The invisible force of the law.

Currents of enthusiasm slither shivering to the capital,

Educed by a recent confession;

The vibrations resounding from the homely cave wall,

Returning the words he had spoken.

That, lamenting one's life and enticing one's death,

Is surrender in the eyes of those few who've survived;

Because they too, once, didn't know;

And that, to afflict one's being with malediction,

In a house of barred windows and doors,

Is just about equivalent, for those who would flee,

To tearing one's lungs, with the perishing screech,