New Poem: Bitterness Enough

Bitterness Enough
***
winding through the thickets, laurel hells,
mosscrowned forests . . .
like greenbrier, tangles of something wicked,
wretched, vetchlike strangling
what could be underblossoms here.

when something has clutched so long
that it's regarded as part of the mental scenery,
it isn't hard to see the disease,
here in seasondeath, winter's colder breath
breathing down your neck
in icy, fetid gusts
a yeth hound looking over your shoulder
reading it's own legend in every book.

pound the keys,
clutch the pen in a deathgrip,
spill the ink like blood,
and build a cage to trap it in . . .
and once you make the key,
throw it away.

you need only survive until the vernal equinox,
and Spring, and Rebirth . . .
forgiveness covering the jagged scars
in the earth
with gentler blossoms
and kinder foliage.

with every seed you plant in the heart's soil,
say a prayer for the crop that will come,
so you don't need to fear the harvest . . .
there is bitterness enough
in the foulness others have sown
seeking only to stuff the barns of their own appetites,
their bloated self-importance gloating
over sharecroppers
who never even received the gleanings.

there's poison in that soil.