The boy-king wanted to incinerate
A fell and meretricious thryrus.  
His grandfather would venerate
The same staff, terrified of curses.  
His mother’d slandered the drunk god,
But regretting feckless blasphemy
She counseled them to spare the rod,
Until they heard the divine decree.  
Once the summoned prophet had appeared,  
Blind, and clad in a frayed, goatskin cloak,  
The monarch sputtered “It’s cursed, weird,
And wrong, burn it down to ash and smoke!”
The former monarch begged, “Appease
Bromius with primeval rite,  
A lord who smites his enemies
A lord too terrible to fight.”
The daughter next, “His worshipers
Run mad, and slaughter their own kin,
Even children.   The god massacres
Those who dispute his origin”
The prophet lifted up the staff
And tore the ivy from its tip.  
“Rites, massacres, don’t make me laugh,
And immolation’s sponsorship.”
He swung the staff to test its heft,
And said, “I need a walking stick,  
The drunkard has no bacchics left,
****** the goatish lunatic.”
At this, the grandfather turned pale,
And the repentant mother winced.  
Matched severity cannot avail
If fear and butchery convinced.  
A proverb soothes the quondam king
And the dowager, “He frightens you,  
But moderation in each thing,
And that in moderation too.”

Our undercroft had housed our dead
Unseen, in gloomy sepulture.  
But pagan chieftains much prefer
Barrows, where height can show instead.  
And the busier departments need
Those lowest levels for their work.
Glib passers-by avoid that murk,
And absent bosses don’t impede.      
Ensconsed where corpses decomposed,
Those in cubicles will thrive, unvexed,
And never taken from their desks,
They’ll finish the great work imposed.  
Interrers from a raucous age
Buried their kings and queens in mounds.
Since robbers filch, and greed abounds,
The wise entombed their heritage.  
Sarcophaguses, then the norm,  
Are too chilly for a comfy bed.  
The dawn should kiss those lids of lead,
To heat what blankets cannot warm.
Rather than burying in hills,
Top those barrows with their occupants.  
These somber monuments enhance
What would be dowdy domiciles.  
Coffins as cenotaphs and plaques,
Allow the dead to bask in sun,
And feel what veneration’s done.  
Hilltops make the best catafalques.

In mainland meadows, flowers tempt,
Yet spurn those animals they tease,
Except caprificating bees.  
Here, whatever’s edible’s unkempt.  

There is an isle more fortunate
Where nettles sow chrysanthemums,
And farming isn’t wearisome,  
And where what tempts must satiate.

Clacking belongs to hollow shells,
And echoes stilled, and tongueless bells.
Toys are made flimsier than tools,
And sloth is banished from the schools.  
When clacking’s ceased, adults relax.  
Childhood is hardship and attacks.

A hungry alphabet will flock
One word to several things.  
Taut meanings have diverged
From verbal hankerings.

One of their neighbors is afflicted
With a fell spirit, lost, and doomed
To roam alone among the tombs,
The spirit’s fierce, but some have tricked it.      
Citizens have bound the madman tight,
Caught him in fetters or in chains,
But strength no ligature contains
Breaks them like braided aconite.  
And after this, they let him be
Because his might has always snapped
Twine tying wrists, but flesh has trapped
Unspeakable malignancy.

This sleep has sunk to catacombs
Where dreams are dreaming of themselves,
And where they slump to deeper shelves
A dim and voiceless banshee roams.  
Interlopers jostle memory,
And pressing on his signet ring,
Take on the seal of realer things.  
Truth’s rejected for hyperbole.  
Delusions stack in strata, drowned,
Lives never lived, in parallel,
That puzzle sleepers who can’t tell
Where waking lies, so lies confound.