Type, Cast

He crafted word ... all plucked delicately like the petals pulled for a vinok precious and pink and pulpy wove them, giv'n a similar grace not for vanity, mind you ... or even title but to stir the cockles a soul-or-two ... or three for some time, it was all but his care pride and pulchritude ... and the plunge of his heart (shadowed by sin and sate and substance) strung with singular perspective 'pon a loom of language, lust and marrow pearly strands of pensitive passion individually knotted ... with wordage, wondrous and wild cutting edge tomes ... crimped by classic phrasing tenderly, yet starkly unapologetic ... He bound thru hoarfrost, highland fells With naught but knees to ring the bells Such haunting peals from little blooms That daubed his hell with dreamy doom Yet, something ... something, there was that set his heart a-thrum more deeply, still that coursed his veins with an overpowering conflagration fiery and fierce, it moved and carried all care, kindness and carnality with it wordy AND winsome ... phrase and fancy and fluid momentum ... a garden, seeded with harmony and rhythmic intent more substantive fabrics bound with ribbons of pulse and melody but even more, yet ... not just manipulation of language but language itself ... a language of the SOUL the binding dust of his bones the bright of his being and the very breath that exhaled his purpose ... He wrapped his dreams around their throats Sweet things that bled with beats and notes And squeezed with all the strength he knew While each bright face turned ghastly blue 'See me', said his id ... 'I am not a user ... I am not a poet I am not a bard or sculptor, or baker or bow I am the bread ... I am the arrow, sent forth I am the used ... the tool ... the instrument I am the ink, flowing from a pen, divine ... in all humility, I am the blessed NOT the blessing ... but rejoice, for I AM you and we have been gifted the gift to gift OTHERS to create beauty from the barren to give voice to the mute to give color to the darkness and shape to the formless and to bind the wounds of the forsaken know me', said his id ... 'and know your reality' but he did not rejoice ... he did not see for it was his to wield, deeply not to be wielded ... The morn breaks, new, for each grieved soul Though doubts and deeds can take their toll He suffered, wrought from pride's cold dawn Those highlands bled from shame, now gone Damned ... he was a chalice, unfillable an ache, untouched a phrase unfinished a song unsung a tool wielded by the divine but lost to the oily depths for one sake only ... her ... He searched for what he'd thus once found That careless heart ... now dead and bound. ~ 1st Place ~ in the "Strand Completely New (11) Any Theme, Any Form" Poetry Contest, Brian Strand, Judge & Sponsor.