carpe poem #2

Let poems be what they are, speak into context-less contexts, blank pages of life. I think poems are context-creating things, putting frames on life, which is why I think so many poems are about nature, because nature frames us these days. How many of our forests and groves and copses now border our neighborhoods and city limits? Bodies of water? Okay, poetic rambling ends here. 

Here is another poem. 


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Stronghold

I have set its hedges down

where you would trip,

dug the moat where you would 

drown and muddle in diplomacy,

and if you were far

off, I have poised the trebuchets on your

position, reaching into old tensions, 

so that if you advanced,

weakened with that volley, I could signal

the indefensible archers emoting from intelligent

parapets bearing impossible standards, 

and if you rammed close

so that I could see my name on your lips,

my bowels would be moved, cauldrons

of scoria slagging over so consuming that 

even my defenses begin to char and change

out of desperation, knowing the condition

that this castle's keep will not, cannot, keep

and what I cannot keep, for some reason,

without end, without reason, I will die to defend.