My flesh burns as if Nessus’ tunic donned,

A writhing agony, a searing pain,

Visited twice before and thought foregone,

Alas, this throbbing dolor strikes again.

Alack vigor enough to raise my pyre,

To drudge muddy earth for wood and tinder,

To stoop and shoulder life’s burdensome weight.

Nor know courage enough to light the fire,

And reduce this sod to ash and cinders,

And conclude the horror of mortal fate.

The anguish, the mis’ry, burning inside,

Snuffs the yearning ambitions of youth’s pride.

My waning mettle draws but one recourse,

An entreaty to the dark-wingèd truants,

A desp’rate plea to be from pain divorced,

E’er addled by some sleepy effluent.

O, for a quaff of Lethe’s waters to drain,

Or amusing ether to long inhale,

Or for a bale of fresh poppy to feast,

Whate’er liquor it be that lulls my brain,

Whate’er noxious gas to ease my travails,

Whate’er suffice to forestall pain’s increase.

A tincture, a potion, or laud’num draught,

So long as mortal pain can be forgot!

If not drink, wings, alike thee, grant me wings!

Not those waxed feathers of Daedalus’ craft,

Which doomed his Icarus to Ocean’s sink,

But mindful sails to hail thine lucid drafts.

To dreams, quiet and still, let thoughts flutter,

Let soaring spirit depart its prison,

Let body rest and permit soul’s escape.

O, masters of dreams, bequeath me rudder,

Let my mind’s vessel chase after visions,

And explore the reaches of thine dream-scape!

Plant ye pinions onto this depressed mind.

That life anew in thine domain it finds!

-Q-

@WindsPoetic

https://poeticwinds.wordpress.com

Blows merry Zephyr, his perfervid winds,

Awakes Spring’s ruddy charms to his alarms,

Comes budding crimson as Winter rescinds,

To bloody wan fields with their thorny arms.

My body swells as thine sleepy head dwells,

Long I await to see thine ripened heart,

Its waters to quell, this infernal Hell,

That quarters my enflamed spirit apart.

Ai me! Thine slow reveal tortures me still,

’Neath scarlet flounces, thine pleasures concealed,

No doubt, as engorged as my virile will,

Yet, behind veiled curtains remain them sealed.

Withdraw what blushéd duty bids ye hide,

Permit flushéd beauty to creep inside!

-Q-

@WindsPoetic

https://poeticwinds.wordpress.com

What warped illusions casts thine bristled wand?

Imbues the foul with the fairest of traits,

Copies what well-endowed Nature hath drawn,

Yet conjures praise for what it duplicates.

Cheap thine magic for all born as mimics,

Paints all a specious portrait with their brush,

Faults and slips concealed by tonal gimmicks,

Thine true picture exposed by fading blush.

By reaping Time, thine canvass disfigured,

Wild deceit he dispels; Truth he ensnares,

Only the Sublime shalt he transfigure,

And leave thine decrepit frame, worse for wear.

Painter, honor th’ image long-handed down,

Else be deceived and don the jester’s crown.

-Q-

@WindsPoetic

https://poeticwinds.wordpress.com

Deep rivers waded, endless oceans crossed,

Thicket forests cleared, swampy mangroves dared,

Enduring burning sands and frigid frost,

Onward, seeking beauty beyond compare.

Neither thund’rous storms nor stinging hail halts,

His weather-beat galley’s steady advance,

Nor scurvy disease or bodily faults,

Keeps this fevered sailor from his romance.

This wayward wand’rer without trav’ling guide,

Alack compassed lodestone and astral charts,

Trusts alone his instincts and gritted pride,

To discover what longs the love-stirred heart.

Forward always e’en if troubles arrest,

Distress an excuse to call off love’s quest.

-Q-

@WindsPoetic

https://poeticwinds.wordpress.com

I once was a man of great wit,

Who suffered from many a fit,

Ill, I often fell,

Though none could clear tell,

If, from this good world, I had quit.

One day, after a nasty bout,

Broken and crippled, I struck out,

Inches from death’s door,

Laid out on the floor,

My worried lovers left with doubt.

No sooner dead, that very night,

Gathered them to read my last rites,

To commit to tomb,

Inter in earth’s womb,

This ghastly corpse, their once delight.

Awaking to my new confines,

I realized my terrible bind,

“ ’Tis a prank,” I spake,

“An honest mistake,”

“The product of jovial minds.”

But after wasting for a day,

I became dreadfully dismayed,

That this was my lot,

Done in by cheap plot,

The comic turned to tragic play.

So, on these wooden planks I script,

This ghastly tale from grievous crypt,

Of a gimp harried,

Untimely buried,

Ferried away by fatal slip!

-Q-

@WindsPoetic

https://poeticwinds.wordpress.com

[Repost from Feb. 15, 2019].

Wherefore ye construct atop sandy grains?

By the slightest shake, thine estate crumbles,

By th’ Earth, swallowed after the gentlest rains,

Or by airy breeze blown, thine walls tumble.

Wherefore ye craft without proven design?

Ye behead columns of their ordered styles,

Ye equalize their curvaceous outline,

And recklessly o’erburden these slimmed piles.

Fool, wherefore ye build when ye must repair,

The divided house which falters within?

Attend, foremost, to these forlorn affairs,

Here, with the reject, the refuse, begin.

Architect, lay out first thine foundation,

Else witness the collapse of thine nation.

-Q-

@WindsPoetic

https://poeticwinds.wordpress.com

I want!

-But that is not a need.

It is a desire.

-In your good mind, a temporary weed.

Yet it spreads.

-To it do not forfeit the lead.

No, but quench it. Do the bidding?

-Do not impurity feed!

Alone I cannot fight it.

-In masses it will only breed.

Why to solitude you have forsaken me?

-Because only the mind that birthed the sin, can make it bleed.

Can I take this leap of faith?

With all the faith I have in myself.

Do I trust? Do I believe?

That this decision I will not grieve.

That I have a chance to succeed.

Or do I need a plan B?

Do I plan it, calculate everything?

Or do I jump and just let it be?

Do I ask for help? A push ahead?

Curse someone else with my destiny?

All these questions for this one step.

I wonder how many more like this I'lll take.

Will death clear my walk?

Or will my footprint in time endure?