SO SHOULD THE DROWSING BRANDS BE PLUCKED

so should the drowsing brands be plucked

from the dreaming fires of what could be

abruptly into charred reality, or anonymously

than that they should be read complicitly

and misconstrued

the poets made of fire and dew

the more than eloquent 

now conscripted to serve

the politically absurd

better to tread no stage at all

and never to be named or known

than to survive millenia this way

so to assay the future

so to no avail

not to prevail for ages from their rightful souls

but ever to be trolled, marauded, bought and sold

defaced from view, repackaged in a petulant nomenclature

who raced their chariots toward a peerless sun

in words of gold of pearl now read,

now lectured on, as if they were done.

and never dreamed at all.

mary angela douglas 24 september 2022;22 february 2023