The mirror’s glamour
gloomy shade
reflected not
what he thought:
the sleep on the road, on the run
prisons of papier-mâché
monsters of men, martyrs
wearing crowns of thorns.
While the tales have all been told,
and the lies
behind the eyes, as
crow’s feet peck and hop
and four and twenty black birds
murmur across
dark waters
and oft-forgotten woods
where dreams once dwelt.
Cauldrons scald of stone soup
made with love by
those Bremen Town magicians
visions of beasts, eat
and as they feast, their eyes
on the throne of bones
dragged away by their own
evil desire and enticed
their animal natures, rut, rote
reign forever in this world
atop a hill of beans.
He forgets his face
until the next time he looks,
gazing at the grays
that weren’t there last time.