Poet-Kind

It’s been a longish while since I last saw fortune smile
Or since last I met a truly happy muse
Most think invention trickles from the poison and the prickles,
Which means poets must perpetually bruise
I hate to think it’s true, some may believe my thoughts are gruesome
But the implication striking me with fear
Is that the muse of sorrow might be here and gone tomorrow
But for my eternal strife to keep it here
My soul is what my soul is, and it lowers the portcullis
Fast against the unfamiliar and unknown
The walls remain unbroken, but the smallest of a token
Of a bribe could well endanger any throne
My mind is stirred and muddied and my paper torn and bloodied
With the vehemence of thought and with the ink
That’s pulsing through my veining and methodically draining
From my heart into my penning as I think
It’s slow, convulsive dying and my fingers are implying
That the time has come to end the sorry farce
They tremble with the passion curving them to force and fashion
Alternating morbid hatred and remorse
The raven haunts me pertly, whether subtly or overtly
As a rigid shadow hopeless to defuse
It’s never my intention to usurp this fine invention
Though it lends its jawed projections to my muse
And, like the shadowed creature, I am bending ev’ry feature
Of the light into the darkness of my words
Unleashing temporary warbles from a weak canary
I am caged the blackest, bloodiest of birds
Come hear my singing, singing; see my soul come winging, bringing
Generosity upon the human race
Dig deeply to my nothing and return with utter loathing
Or with pity on my solitary face
I promised something better than a prison and a fetter
But the chains are worn in darkness out of sight
The sting is where the balm is--keep the fetter, break the promise
Sleep the day in dream, awaken to the night
Cry mercy to begin me, I can find no courage in me
And I’m wading through a formula of life
Disquiet overtakes me and defeat unduly breaks me
And I find that my philosophy is rife
With humanistic pleasure and with holes of ev’ry measure
And what truth remains is difficult to find
But mixed with blood and bruises and subjected to the muses,
Truth invents a paragon of poet-kind.