OUTCAST

My hermitage is a small rented flat -

It has nothing to do with racy

Grange –

My country cursed me for another’s crimes

So now outcast this land sees me as strange.

For five years now I’ve hidden from the storms

Knowing there are killers on the highways,

Who have been forgiven for their mistakes,

While hate’s fires of contempt for me still blaze.

I have no debts but all assets are gone,

Depleted by the larceny of laws;

And what income I seek has shrunk to nought –

None will buy my novels of moans and roars.

Each day I walk the tidal watermarks

My heart in shreds, as if taken by sharks.