Parliament of Rooks (for Oscar Wilde)
A brooding black tempest hovers, then descends.
The meeting field swells with rooks, the air groans
with raucous caws that circle the guilty one.
Gathered from all realms, the hang-man court,
juried by birds of like-marred feathers
and cemetery grim. How brief the cohorts
met in counsel, reviewed the case, and broke!
O reckless precious aesthete, now rescind
all hope! Caught and deposed, reviled as smut
despite all artistry, your trial was done
ere the day began. This vicious carnage
makes you (no saint) a politic martyr.
What remains, but ravished gory plumage
like foul sooty stains, dead curls of smoke?
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