Desolation

Appalled by the strife, misery,

And grief that made my children sad.

I made a special barony,

A place for everything that’s bad.

In this dominion, wrong can rule,

And amassed, famish entropy,

To drain its spring so it can’t pool.

Its kingdom a diablerie.

I baked some bricks from blood-soaked clay,

A mortar from cremated ash

To raise a wall, and keep away

Trespassers on that horrid cache.

I stacked the bricks up high, and iced

The top with broken glass; the gates

I knit from bones. None are enticed

By gore the heart abominates.

That garden was a habitat

For bramble, poisoned tree, and tare.

Snake, scorpion, louse, stinging gnat,

And toad could find an eden there.

Glades turned to scrubs of twisted boles

And straight between these patches ran

Broad avenues of burning coals.

A wretched spot, a talisman.

I looked on what I’d made, savoring

How foul it was, then turned to see

The withering of withering,

And taste the death of death with glee.

Corruption, blight and ruin reigned.

The wastelands swallowed every town,

The oceans stinking and profaned,

My garden desolation’s crown.

Lifeless evil can’t asphyxiate.

And the good needs some aid at least

I’ll try again, and I’ll create.

A paradise for man and beast.