Captive Bird - 12 Bars 12 Dreams
12 BARS
Twelve rusty bars, one frozen lock -
Confined, sublime, an ancient Roc,
Enclosed inside a barren cage -
Her catacomb in sundown sage.
Of former days there is no trace
Except displays of fallen grace -
Twelve dreams, abiding in her place,
Are free and dwell in yawning space:
12 DREAMS
Of wings unfurled, and seething eyes
That dredge the depths of dawning skies
Unclamping clouds that hang below,
Once ice, dissolved in morning's glow;
Of clutching winds that carry free
Beyond a leaden anguished sea
Dispersing dust of stifled stars
Midst chunks of chain in slave bazaars;
Of swooping to a silent shore,
To perch beyond the ocean's roar
Amazed to feel the sobbing breeze
Message the leaves of rooted trees;
Of stalking trails of twilight tramps,
Within the fog of lighthouse lamps
That blink forlorn through caldron nights,
In search of shades of errant Kites;
Of darkling vast deserted lands,
The windswept stones, the shadowed sands,
Where ghosts of Moorish maidens lost
Conceal their groans in mourning frost;
Of blotting out the bloated moon
While feathers beat a banshee tune
And glimmers dance and prance aglow
Upon a pearly pale plateau;
Of tasting cool torrential rains,
Beyond the realm of binding chains,
And sipping freedom they exude
In quite drops of solitude;
Of whisking off a galley crew
[...] Read more
poem by Terry O'Leary
Added by Poetry Lover
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