Ecce Homo

Aches and pains lasso the wild horses of the mind

Herding them back to their stables where they

Stare at the walls ruminating, twitching, alone.

The fields and their flowers in the sun are a memory,

The hooves sinking in the sand are a distant dream.

 

A world once wide shrinks and now is held

Captive within one’s cold, sweaty skin.

It’s all here, within these bounds:

A feverish tropics, a freezing arctic,

A desert devoid of life, and a deaf and mute sky.

 

What is man, but a painted thought, or

A mask on a face no one has ever seen.

A misty cloud, though compelled by law to rise,

Bound to a lifeless rock, doomed to live

Through eons and ages and not grow wise.