Bannerless Poems

The Way It Always Used To Be

In our house divided
Serpent swallows its own tail
Hiding under eaves from caustic rainfall
Slithers from relentless hail

The herald’s horn blows empty
Bannerless with rusted brass
As a pathway twists to nowhere
Sunken boneway through dry grass

All the bluff and bluster’d daytime
Shivers in the nighttime’s chill
Hidden faces in the shadows
Perching watchful on the sill

For what man sits in judgment
Calling out another’s fall
Basking in a liar’s sunlight
Wallow’d in a darker thrall

Joy and laughter in opaque beakers
Homunculus sealed in a jar
Bottled hatred feeds that stranger
Fallen angel, falling star

Or are those moaning whispers 
Merely boggarts of the mind 
Niggling in the deepest recess
As collective psyche must unwind

Will we receive divine forgiveness
For all the evil that men do
Or is it just a sideshow 
Freewill drama in god’s zoo

Remember golden summers
Warmer breezes, taller trees
Laughter floating down a hallway
The way it always used to be

All the shining moments
Burning ashes from the past
Smiling faces loving touches
The moments never last...