The book lies open
discarded notes
framing the corner
your room so quaint
pictures hang
askew!
You carefully smile
avoiding
guarding
You have learned to guard
a wastepaper basket
full of nothing, so you say
wrinkled corners peak
over the edge
You silently wring your hands
trying to hide
To hide what?
Who you are?
Where you came from?
Your gut wrenching love
spills, your fevered mumblings
You stare at the basket
then turn away
It’s just not good!
Just not good enough
How can you be so sure
if you hide
and, don’t tell the world
Don’t let go!
Don’t ever let go!
Your conscience screams
Your cupboards full
of empty corners
Your fridge unexplored
Your hands cold
And your unwaning love
begging from an impatient
metal Bin
Where perhaps, rejection sits?
Greatest of military men, Carthage's son, bright and bold
Took the elephants of war over the Pyrenees frozen cold
And would delay the Gentile's time fulfilling when the race
Stood proud, under your command of the second Punic war
But then that Africanus, your student with love displaced
Entered North Africa, to plunder, to maim, and there to scar
Except you had relinquished pride for love of native land
To find your Waterloo at Judas unwaning hand in the sand
Tell me how you conquered Spain again, tell me how Iberia
Under Africa's constellation slipped from darkness and hysteria
Into confidence and light; Tell me about Bithynia's fast fleet
That routed the Pergamons, and revenged Antiochus plight
Look now how Alexander, Caesar, Napolean, before your feet
Lay their laurels, and in Tunisia old men eyes gleamed light
When your name is called, but where is your grave, great one?
How past all mighty empires in the dusk of the setting sun?
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.