dark

[billy]

The Weight of Worlds





I behold the weight of worlds in anguished eyes,
[ind]in the cries of the farmers at the hail,
[ind]the cancered man, looking too deep.
No exit, the young man bawls at yondering love,
[ind]but I can not catch him as he falls,
[ind]or still the screams of the poor soldier.
I grieve with the mother of the hungry child, the
[ind]wild-eyed loner, beneath some dark eclipse,
[ind]gnash my teeth at wild and unfair fate,
[ind]but I can’t recreate glee for sorrow’s mate.

Oh, the weight of worlds I hear in garbled moans;
[ind]what remedy or solace may I provide
[ind]to a survivor, or that wounded cuckold?
What groans may poems turn to song, or bright verse
[ind]alleviate when the very sun goes dark?
How may I sleep through dried and brittle crops,
[ind]or with the resound of distant screams,
[ind]when I have seen the chaos of soldier’s dreams?
Abed, I thrash with the agony of my troubled species,
[ind]as if each flower painted by careful words
[ind]withers in all the weeping I have heard.

The weight of worlds has attached itself to me
[ind]and Shakespeare’s question occurs
[ind]as my clock strikes a metaphysical
[ind]twenty-three, “to be or not to be?”

i have read this quite a few times. and enjoyed it each time. for me , the enjambment jars on L7, some of of the internal rhyme is excellent; shakes 23 to be was superb.
there is a lot to like about the imagery, too much for a line by line. the whole of the 1st verse poignant. and the last lines in the penultimate stanza are perfect in expressing the human condition.
i tool the liberty of indenting the lines i thought you wanted indented. the form you did for me adds greatly to the poem. jmo

thanks for the read.