“There’s no more time for poetry”
the ragged poet said.
His eyelids had gone heavy.
It was way past time for bed.
But every time he stopped the words
from flowing through the pen,
they’d cry, cajole, and threaten
til he picked it up again.
He needed water, food, and sleep,
but they’d not let him be.
His sleepy eyes began to cry.
They would not set him free.
His candles burned to pools of wax
throughout the quiet night.
The poetry was piled in stacks
of neat, prodigious height.
And as the sky was paling o’er,
the last word penned had dried.
And when the sun was at his door,
the ragged poet died.
The poem had not been finished though,
the words had more to say.
They’d help to make his writing flow,
and work throughout the day.
The ragged poet’s fingers twitched
with necromantic life,
and with his writing hand bewitched,
the pen gripped like a knife,
He wrote unceasing,
running out of paper, and of ink.
The paper curled and blackened,
and his flesh began to stink.
The nib keeps dipping, dipping,
in the inkwell long run dry,
The maggots keep on dripping
from his long unseeing eye.
And should you pass his humble home
alone there on the hill,
you’ll hear, beneath the starry dome,
the scratching of his quill.
BlackQuill 