I’d sought quiet in this wood
pursuing poetry to no good
in solitude with my thought
trepidation is — verse is not
the darkness of this night
shrouds choking close n’tight
cold as an old tundra witch
charred as slag-sooted pitch
this foreboding icy moon
stabs a sliver of chilling gloom
through the heart of the trees
where I tremble on my knees
trapped in unanchored dreams
my forsaken soul now screams
lost in loosed untethered fears
I am adrift upon my tears
unmoored from space and time
here my soul can find no rhyme
in confusion I’m immersed
no poem of worth can here be versed
the devil has finaly had his way
no lofty verse will rise this day
no poem to save my weary soul
no clever words to pay my toll
engulfed by this emptiness
rigored by my loneliness
this void smuggles away my breath
I pray for sleep — deep as death
*
rob kistner © 2021
Poetry at: earthweal