The minstrel

He may look as though he left his mother the other day
and hasn’t had many hours to sponge the world,

but the lad has too many unseen years
tied to his hands behind his back.

His youth bears scars that he wishes were realized,

as he realizes although they remain, they are healed.

He spouts out blanched, lightly seasoned rhythms

that are seemingly pleasing to his audience

and cohesive with his appearance.

The crone that lingers in his bowels, however, cries, “More!”

as she raps her staff on his tailbone...

he had swallowed her long ago while inhaling his first breath.

Her cruel inspiration spurs him on

in his hope of subduing the mired muse.

She’s entertained too many butterflies in his belly

and now he’s obsessed, longing for familiar, anxious excitement.

Jokingly he admits to all the crazed mental relapses,

excusing himself by asking, “Aren’t we all?”

He could hide it well enough, and he’ll try again

throwing his convulsions down the cistern

excavated in the hub of his existence.

Down there, in the quagmire...

where all his clandestine objects are heaved,

decomposition is absent.

Invitation after invitation has been mailed,

requesting the rotten presence,

for the bodies are piling up.

Perhaps decay doesn’t dwell there anymore...

no matter, he will choose cannibalism over exposure.

He hides his language in shouts and screams,

as it turns his stomach inside out to spill his guts.

His speech splatters against

the interior walls of his mental corridors...

graffiti on an overused canvas.

The stale horror of his circumstance

nearly chills his exposed chest

but moreover removes him from his

frail stronghold he conceals himself in.

Lighted twilights he drifts to.

He lingers in those times of barely seeing,

still seeing more than he does.

Those stretched auroras reassure him of exterior ecstasies,

places other than his internal gloom.

He paces slowly in those times, gently singing...

“No noose is tied in the rope.  There is hope.  There is hope.”