The Flair of a Pish-Posh Flare

Aye! Listen to my ails

For my long lost love of those dry, pale ales!

How parched my barren throat turns aflame

As I stand between these magnificent arcs –

Mesmerized by the ancient, sacred arks

That have been resurrected

From his pain.

Laid naked about like a chipped, window pane!

As I stumble upon that dirt path home,

I brayed in a drunken hum

To the lass who fashioned an evening braid.

But it was she who left cause

To the now broken, beating flesh of mine –

As those tones matched this heart’s hollowed caws.

An in my chance,

I crocheted some chants,

For the school children’s hymns that day.

And in my arid stupor,

As sobriety shapes my logic,

I cowered,

Like a shameful coward,

Under the moonlit reflection I saw then.

My face,

So haggard,

My beard as a dirty crewel –

Oh, how life has been cruel

To a drunkard like me!

Within these dense dents

That lay upon my crown,

I defusely disengage

the frayed edges that linger diffusely in the dim light.

I am of no harm.

But to thee who peer behind

The dark, moldy veil to accede,

My trials,

The gross of my failures,

Will far exceed.