Crag the Crow

Just a jot about the end of things for the  marginal mourner on this bier of rest that was laid in place for this  wary wayfarer, as an offering of pained fitful rest for this one,  too. And it gave pain to his fatted raiment. Hard wood offering a consolation and rest for none now, But much for later. Later is sooner than the age of these unyielding planks And less the span of the each one’s dissolute life. This one slept on a bier by baggage claim at the desolate port. The other went to his consolation encased in a blessed greenwood. Restless in life, a potential poorly employed, A piteous man wracked on the inside Now immolated and destroyed without. A man’s vibrant dark hair, roiling muscles and full face Thrashed by time’s tyrannical torture. His soul frittered away, lost at sea by piece through decades. The box ships him to fairer shores and to a harbor master Who forgets his just fare. And the wake of the sailing spruce May have drowned remaining ones under the dark...

I have had two fathers and I have been cast off by both of them. From my perch, it seems as if both of them were easily able to cast me aside - one because of his own mental deficiencies, and the other because I manifested my failures in front of him. Both had professed undying love and paternity.  One was biological and God-given.  The other was spiritual and also God-given. My father, my Dad, has not lived in the same home with me since I was a teen.  He was ejected from the family home in a horrifying evening of abuse and recompense.  It was a few months after that when we began to heal the relationship.  Over the next twenty years, there were periods of drought and periods of festal joy in our relationship.  When the judgment for his state mandated quarantine was passed, I became his loving correspondent.  When life’s happenstance returned us to within a driving distance, we visited each other more often.  By that time, I was a daddy too....

The world belongs not to the old or young, But belongs to itself in cobalt glory. The young are not masters because of vigor, The matured in confident submission are not the masters, The elders are not masters of self made wisdom. The world, benign and destructive - The flesh sickened and healing - Was planted in a garden to welcome The timeless Lord of Sabaoth into his joy; To give life to the new, To give salt to the seasoned, To give Truth to the tired. The world is blank and we are the adornment.

For ten years the patient muddled through And for eight more he managed the neglect and decline. The festering sepsis soaked limb and liver. Liberty Morris was broken and breaking. Passively and actively The insidious infections in his soul Coupled with the toxins he ingested.   And the nurse arrived on a partly cloudy day, Loaded the crab-walking fool into a Chevy Nova For the rented pilgrimage to the clinic. The pathetic wasting hirsute beast Was loved and fretted over by the Philosopher Queen. She had healing in her heart, Courage in her spirit to spare.   Slightly old doctor Goidel Glas, examined patients near an olive tree. Liberty stumbled, sprawled on the earthen clay, regarding the healer.   Mountebank, I have been ill for half my life, it suits me well; My illness is now mine own self. Conceal your cathartic contraptions and catholicons, Restrain your pretended ancient knowledge My condition precedes, exceeds, destroys a breathless cosmos.   No...

The mostly shuttered hospital has become a hulk of bricks  Where children once were born and grandparents passed. The nurses and doctors have taken the healing arts Out of this once consecrated space.   Agonal breaths of a lung that enlivened this city Become gasps for a stale air that has receded, Calling all to a different pile of bricks for the next half generation, Distributing ineffable mysteries of catharsis.   And spying upon the old grounds a new creation springs forth - A squirrel has taken careful carefree time to bless this tiny maple. In the crook, in the elbow of a diminutive leafless arbor, He scratches his ears and watches the rushed and chilly scattering.   Barely noticed, he notices each ailing clothed creature. Does the squirrel judge, does the squirrel spurn, does the squirrel dismiss? Such destruction of the bonds of creation are impossible To this perfect beast, enjoying the thistled garden.   Caring for...