Prison

Surely this garden of iron doors
Yet houses cadavers of stray horrors.
Empty towers with windows of grime
Are the trophies of that time,
When each spirit would vainly crawl
Hoping to scale that wall.
Though gone the sadness remains
In the flower’s dawn lit tearstains.
And gathered ‘neath aurora dim
A throng of grey seraphim
Stand on a wind faint and low
Bearing what faded long ago:
Gifts of light bathed in woe.
Seeking echoes of recalled footfall
Down each rotted hall,
They weep from faces of stone
Where no lovebird’s song has flown.
And the shadows show no pity
On the outskirts of that city
Where stand these walls and rusted bars
‘Neath skies with no living stars.
And in the chamber of the gallows
A dejection, a desperation glows.
No crowned Christ dwells in here,
This room where death reigns dear.
And down to a bloom-deprived garden
They bring the breathless men;
Their souls yet drifting
Where wind is shifting
To carry such voices to the traveler’s ears:
Tidings of their hopes, their sins; their fears.
And that angel throng
Heeds so dark a song,
And raise their heads in gloom
To the cries from each tomb.
But no orisons can they say…
Their wings are broken…they cannot fly away.