Power

I am at one candle power
My  halo round yellow Sow
Flickering I bend and
Wither, climb again, grow
High and  strong, fleeting and
Fizzing in the young
Morning  hours which darken
Worst  before dawn shows.

Blackness billows like a cloak
Around  my  gold circumference,
Scuffs my disc's edge -
I am come  to this:
A  last ditch attempt at
Life's guesses - I throw
Myself  at its precipice of
Tallow, and stick

Until I melt and run
Within  its waxen arms, become
A  liquid victim of these heat
Extremes  and slowly roll
Congealing trail outwith the
Reach  of my own  meagre glow.

I coagulate, solidify to grey
How  the coldness stiffens me,
One  candle power too weak to
Stretch its yellow eye toward
Such  dark infinity, too thin
To  throw aside these black
Folds  of night, and now too cold
To  fight my way back
Upwards   to the light.
Collected Works
Return to Collections all
next poem