SWORD

My feet fall heavily these days –

Slowed up by sticking to my ways,

Shocked by the times

And halfway crazed,

Walking at dusk,

Hidden by haze.

I should have been those ragged claws

That Prufrock saw

Before world wars,

Scuttling across those ocean floors,

Hard and silent,

Without a cause.

Like him I never ever soared,

I was a mere attendant lord.

He died wriggling

On a pin, gored.

They’ll come for me,

Wielding a sword.

But I hear the songs of magpies

Somewhere up there

In cloudless skies,

Or in a tree –

Leafy disguise.

Compared to me

They seem so wise.