When I Was First a Poet

When I was first a poet
I’d pray to gods of stone
Shipwrecked upon an island 
I’d languish there alone
To gild the golden lily
Barefoot on burning coal
Down Muse's mystic river
I’d sell my mortal soul

To prove myself a writer
I’d open up a vein
Pour crimson ink on paper
Persuade with pen in pain
I’d wander through the twilight
A ghost in grieving glade
Sad sorrow’s spectral shadow
In God-forsaken shade

When I was first a poet
I’d wrap myself in rhyme
Devote to verse completely
Forever; for all time.
In versifier’s garret
I’d lock myself away
Till muse on me took pity
In solitude I’d stay

So poems I could edit
I’d stab and slash with sword
Each sad or sorry stanza
Cut off their foetal cord
I’d dance like whirling dervish
While flames on foetus fed
From termination’s terror
My poetry it bled

When I was first a poet
I’d tell with teary eye
My tender tale of loving
That somehow went awry
When true love turned out tragic
Tore out the heart of me
With cruellest cut and malice
Maimed me an amputee

Forlorn on field of battle
I’d watch the sailing clouds
Come down and clothe the hilltops
Like sacramental shrouds
Till shafts of streaming sunlight
Tore slits for rhyming rays
To slip through Dante’s darkness
And light my dreary days

When I was first a poet
Was careful how I trod
For poetry, it wore for me
The face and form of God
And all those solemn sonnets
By poets I had read
It seemed were wove of wonder
From goddess’ golden thread

That clothed me in my garret
When I got out of jail
(My melancholic marriage
That Fortune forced to fail)
Then Fate found me a true love
To heal my broken wing
Who set me free from sorrow
So soul again could sing

When I was first a poet
A juvenile in jeans
With passion for my poems
Still growing in my genes
The seeds of savage sorrow
Sowed, oh, so silently
Were sweet, since muse was making
A poet out of me

And so she’d see devotion
I’d come in from the cold
To eulogize her beauty
Before my love grew old
I'd love and laugh and linger
Till twilight turned to gold
The poems in my pocket
That never would be sold!