Castle and Crow

Some merry few within the walls

found time to spare

for dance and song,

for decadent food and idle chatter,



but beyond, a rueful scene befalls

the market square.

The squawking throng,

the winged brood, grows ever fatter



on the flesh of innocence

and friendliness.

This way begun,

no further discourse could be saved.



To such moral pestilence,

even Westernesse,

where honor won,

was lost beneath the writhing waves.



Upon all peaceful places,

hatred's thought

is darkly bent.

One eye of madness, one of love,



is set in all these precious faces.

Delicate, fraught,

but never wrent

from purpose. Within, not above.



On one night, I'm in the castle.

The very next,

I'm among the crows.

From mirth into cacophony,



I lose myself in change. Peace, a hassle

to maintain. Perplexed.

Who of us knows

when clamor turns to symphony?



Where is it written? Where's the line?

Does one exist?

I hope to find

what brings us to the brink of violence,



cut it out. This mind of mine

cracks like a wrist

arthritic: resigned,

on repeat, just to break the silence.



My daily grind is as a gear

inside a clock

which tells no time.

Its glass facade conceals bleak odds



and ends, rusted with fear,

rigid with shock.

Tragedies are a dime

a dozen, as if whatever gods



there are have given up. But

with a pep talk,

caffeine, and vitamin

B12, anything is possible.



At the floor of an ancient rut,

where I often walk,

however deep in,

the climb's forever plausible.



If life's a party that never ends,

the looming lateness

of the hour

goes unnoticed by the laughing guests.



A dose of hardship often tends

to call to greatness

latent power

to resist. The hanging balance tests



us all, in time. I'm more certain

now than ever,

having tasted light,

that darkness leaks from us like vapor,



if allowed. It forms a curtain

which would sever

sight from wrong and right.

This obfuscation, many taper



to a sinister, lethal edge

with which to carve

a heedless course.

But thinner than thin is nothingness.



That's how you pierce the veil: pledge

to care, to starve

such predators with remorse

instead of anger. Faced with tenderness



unyielding, conflict and its lovers may

just freeze, may fall

into stillness, pried

from prideful pursuit of war. If you ask



me where I'd like to stand, I'll say

"With you, against all

things which might divide

us." In the common ground, and sun, I'd bask.



But even pacifism takes a fight

in this day and age,

wherein the size

of your tribe is a sign of your virtue.



I say subscription murders insight,

ideology's a cage.

No matter what lies

inside your head, my heart would hate to hurt you.