Iron Horse of Winter

By Patrick Boyd

21st Century

I keep my opium
In a box of suns and moons,
Among stars of floating fire
And black ice.
My hand descends,
A sharp branch fanning
The swirling sleep of revolution,
And sounds a clarion,
Open like a horn
To a sea of tone,
Where melody seeds waves
To summon the world's storm,
A storm of feathered winds
To carry me home.
Along glass rails of fired sunsets
Where harvest looms in golden hunger
of devouring lions,
I remember the phrase
That lights beginning night
With slate of winter roads,
Whose secret ashen arteries inflame
The blessed flower of annihilation
With smiles of crow war paint.
I step back and withdraw my hand
From the candied keys to a micro-cosmos,
Feeling the little teeth fall away
Like dislodged grave stones.
This music of wondrous death
Calls like a woman who had everything
In the blood of autumn,
But could not bring herself to sing
Astride the iron horse of winter.

DayPoems Poem No. 1684
<a href="http://www.daypoems.net/poems/1684.html">Iron Horse of Winter by Patrick Boyd</a>

The DayPoems Poetry Collection, www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor

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