Sonnet on a theme of Villon
I die of thirst beside the fountainhead,
and am least seen where most I am displayed.
Shadows are my substance. I am paid
in ghostly coin to counterfeit the dead.
Under a sagging sky, my dreams are fed
on winds blown far from lands where time has ceased,
in which alone still lives a present, pieced
together from the leavings of instead.
Where most my strength is needed, force has fled,
and those I've aided offer me no aid,
and wanting's self is caged by having, weighed
down hopelessly in place by wings of lead.
Where most I hunger, I am nourished least,
a silent specter famished at the feast.
The Bitter Museum
In the bitter museum the past is on parade
in postures of reproach. Vast corridors
display a thousand ways of being ashamed
and illustrate the progress of despair.
Behind their glass, the mannequins of once
exhibit all the wealth of worlds now gone,
and frozen in their accusatory dance
the avatars of loss are labeled Done.
In the bitter museum extinguished dynasties
of hope set forth their monuments, inscribed
in that dead language, laughter. Vanished breeds
of joy are shown, regretfully alive.
The relics seem so real they almost leer.
In the bitter museum the dust is streaked with tears.
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Jon Corelis www.geocities.com/jgcorelis/
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