DUSTY POET

DUSTY POET Dust before donkey doomed a wicked whirlwind grains of wisdom wrinkle sand webs dust devitalise land here there everywhere nowhere in eyes, on kitchen table parched unfed lips a single tear rolling fell dry gin in glass whimper for verbs, adjectives, metaphors a rake on untended farm stood patient soft sobbing sorrel soil insipid debts piled manic manure his scalp itched his wordy craft crumbling sonnets, verses, vignettes sottoed louder than waiting shrubs white hair falling, skin flaked he failed to vision journal an ode to rip from protruding ribs too much unsaid torrents tortured gestate an epic waiting to birth cannot speak nor write cannot read nor recite dusty throat bone dry doleful faraway in another land, another room in her fist tight his voice she secretly held left his heart and poems on dilapidated shelf parcelled with cracked crockery a scribble on a sheet of toilet paper he flushed away with dried parsley hens cackled unfed fishmoths party Victorian linen dust on books, pamphlets, photographs letters speaking to women dead Pablo Neruda winked from a harbour along with broken spectacles alliteration absent without leave poetry unspoken fell like beads from unwritten noose around one tear neck an escape beckoning where to where from a one-eyed pond with geese watched their dusty poet with his wreaths of unraveled poetry writhing water lilies fading dragonflies floating with dust