The Aspiring Bard

Oh yeah! You guessed it! ANOTHER depressing poem from Janie! Why do I write depressing poetry when I consider myself a pretty happy person? I do not know. It just happens. I was free as a bird, A bird without wings. A canary that sits in its cage and sings. Forced to be cheerful and happy and gay, When on the inside I'd been crying all day. Walled in by houses, cheerless and dank On a slimy old street with gutters that stank. Cooped up all day, not a glimpse of the sky While the grey hours so slowly crawled by. I longed for the grasses, I longed for the wind, If that was called freedom, may my path always bend Toward slavery.

 Black shapes against a sunrise sky, Colony of crows is flying by. Hoarse cawing comes roughly on the breeze As their dark wingtips skim above the trees. Sharp eyes glare fiercely down at us As the crow-clan seems to discuss If we will leave our ripe corn field And let them have its golden yield. Resounding 'Crack!' And down a black bird falls And all the rest fly off with frightened calls. Our precious gold is safe for one more day, The sun comes up as robbers wing away.

Ancient tree stands all alone, Ringed about by choking stone. Twisted trunk and gnarled limbs, Frail leaves quake on weakened stems. Tattered bark, all green with moss, Deeply scored and marked across. Lovers' hearts and clumsy rhymes, Written back in older times. Sentry of a ghostly town, Dry leaves shaking up and down As the wind goes walking by Underneath a fading sky.