It’s not usual to feast on snap-dragons in the cold months
Or run naked through un-sketched woods reeking of incense
And gloom, ridiculing the battered men on crudely carved crosses-
Dribble running from their loose-lipped mouths tumbling into rivers.
The soul, recently discoloured, doesn’t stay long in such corrosive
Environments where time runs furiously along a thin elastic band
Springing backwards then stretched to eternity.
It isn’t usual to feast on snap-dragons in the cold months
Keeping warm before the incumbent gates of hell
Afraid to sweep the snow away from the garden and live.
To sweep away the snow, now turning brown, and gild
With shafts of gold the fallen lily.