Where You Claim To Stand Alone

When anger has ceased to disdain
will you still have reason to write?
Each time your pen rephrases the pain
it ekes out a living, lessens your plight.

Irony’s lost while you rail at your peers
or tilt at a staid establishment
believing you’re facing the worst of your fears
alone in an unstated compliment.

Where you claim to stand alone
turn your tinctured eyes and see
a host of bards you’ve never known
adjoined in soulful company.

This beginning is not yours to keep
clutched in your heart as an agony
of torment but to share, the crown of thorns
you wear a badge of honorific office

making its wearer an unknown foot soldier
undertaking a search for self and truth, seeking
revelation – unsurprisingly finding that where
you are now we have all been before you.
© I.D. Carswell 2007-02-03