Chicagoetry: A Wren in a Wreath

A Wren in a Wreath

So: there's this ghoul
in my soul,

a wren in my wreath.
In a heart full of holes

lurks a golem of grief.

A compendium of flaws,
a contraption of fate, he.
He's not everything,
he's just a part of me.

Of course, I have forged
a life mask with a modicum
of charm and finesse

(God! To get through the day!)

and crowned my fell heart
with a laureate's wreath
for endurance under duress.

Like us all, I swirl
with embattled selves.

Within croaks a ghoul
with an elephant's memory
for bleak humiliation
and roiling defeat.

I've christened him
the wren in my wreath.

He commands a gallows
of heartworn dreams, caretakes
a graveyard of botched ambition.

He embodies my Elephant Man:
swollen skull of cracked, grey leather,
hair-sprouting warts, drooling lips,
a vocabulary of phlegm-wracked slurs.

Yep: like a drunk
just a shot away.

I don't like him
but I must love him.

Because he's there.

Stress, fatigue
and crude draughts of relief

enable the guy
with the elephant grief.

Garlanded elephant
with a wren mahout
straddling his blades
and whipping his flank.

OK: not one wren
but a chime of wrens
like a murder of crows
with a case of the bends.

He's there, my wren,
my wrench in the works.

This Eve of All Hallows
I'll drag my life mask to the gallows
and for this night

I'll let the wren reign.

Yep: I'll purge the wrath
and savor compassion
for all ravens, rooks and knaves.

This night shall go judgment
to the grave.

To dawn
and the Day of All Saints
I bequeath

my shabby heart, my wren,
my wreath.

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J.J. Tindall is the Beachwood's poet-in-residence. He welcomes your comments. Chicagoetry is an exclusive Beachwood collection-in-progress.

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More Tindall:

* Chicagoetry: The Book

* Ready To Rock: The Music

* Kindled Tindall: The Novel

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