Rubaiyat
I
My
Muse's bar bill grows. The barkeep knows I'll pay.
Drink
up, sweet sister! Anything to make you stay
and
teach me all the names you know of nasty stars.
I know
I'll stagger home alone come break of day.
My
friends call me a fool. They say she's using me
by
dropping in all hours unexpectedly.
I just
can't help myself! I swear, I've tried before
whenever
friends were saying "act responsibly!"
A poet's
not some damned domesticated soul.
He's not
the sort to sit and let his veins run cold.
Fire is
the wine he drinks - his only song.
Wrapped
up in beggars rags the song alone consoles.
II
I saw
you once, sweet candle glow, from far away
when I
was young - I had no choice except obey
your
call and wing my way to you through choking night
even if
my end was writhing in your flame.
Some
laugh at all we tiny ones who come to sing
and
throw away our lives in one ecstatic fling.
They
build their walls of stone to keep the world at bay,
we live
and dance and die to taste Love's utmost sting.
Don't
weep for me! I bore Love's torch a little space,
falling
singed and silent to my resting place.
If cold
and stone are all your heart has ever known,
don't
pity us who've lived to taste the flame's embrace!
III
I'll
doubtless die, be buried, where my name's unknown.
That's
easy in the valley of the dust-dry bones
where
one more soul's one soul too many - wasting air,
my hours
squandered singing to these lifeless stones -
How
blessed are the panderers to people's whims,
the
latest catchy jingle's now their holy hymn.
I guess
a change of tune could change my fortunes, too,
but how,
once stars appeared, could I dare look at them?
So come,
sweet anonymity, and eat my name.
A
thousand years from now I guess it's all the same!
Since
moths eat books, the poets words return to dust.
Don't
let 'em kid ya, son, there's no "eternal fame!"
Gary D. Maxwell is a poet currently residing north of Boston. After shoveling roadkill on the Information Superhighway for forty years, Gary now devotes his time to writing. You can find his poetry at Amazon.com
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