Cold Passion

Some dead undid undid their bushy jaws,             and bags of blood let out their flies.. .                         ? Dylan Thomas         The land is barren         wears straw wisps         as an unkempt man         might razor stubble.         The land is dry, a faded yellow         in its barrenness.         A sky broods from afar,         a stalactite sun accounts merely a jot         above that thin road into despair.         Grass lies everywhere dead,         faded tongues above an         earth afflicted with scleroderma,         deadliest of skin disturbances,         forerunner of deeper pestilence.         An erasing wind whips the fields         further into bereavement;         turns tiny bits of chaff to pursue themselves         in a mad St. Vitus dance         of cold passion.         Starry night. With halos         about the moon, pale and languid, big as crimson,         far as wind driven flax.         The orange pallor, pale         with liquid swoon and ability         to churn itself about the         night sky or flood in endless         beams our poorer spectacle below.