Death casts her spell
Madness me overtakes
Misery within does swell
And Hell's lyric she spake

The moments are solemn
Creepy silence has overcome
Once bustling with creative fervor
Stupefied to silence, words dried up
Eternal spring, at the core of the soul
Lying stagnant for a long time
Layers of **** and algae made it murky
The Muses don’t come to drink from it
There is no music played anymore
Violin strings have rusted and not tuned
Every note wailing in despair and neglect
No hymns, only dirge, is chanted from afar
Solemn moments have gripped the heart
Soul deprived of the sweet lyrical waters
Poet’s aquifer is dangerously low
Waiting for the rains of wisdom and creativity
To replenish the eternal spring
Clearing out the **** and algae
Inviting the Muses again, to visit the spring
And words shall flow with clarity, once again
Music shall reign supreme in the soul

she brings him tea,
a piece of cheese late morn  
for he has been toiling since dawn  
his plane shaving the wood reverently
the old oak speaking, though not complaining,
in a language the man does not understand  
a coughing code for loss, forbearance, acceptance,
redemption, he hopes, for the boys keep coming…
first from Ypres, the Verdun,
now the Marne    

before, he heaved hewn planks
for the hopeful homes, built their pantries
to be filled with the bread, the kind milk  
now the sawn boards are for those who once
watched his labors, but no longer hear the simple
sounds of sanding, sawing
or anything at all  

most of the lads do not come home,
their souls and bodies left to rot on the blood sullied grass  
or buried shallow, naked in the French soil, but all get a fine coffin  
thanks to the carpenter’s wife, whose babe was the first to fall,
who demands for them all, a holy horizontal home to be built  
and, empty or not, placed gently in Anglican ground