Burning Tree Poem by Kevin Maroney

The sickly summer stew brews around my ankles,
it rises in fury to scorch my bright eyes.
My nostrils steam as the fire me rankles,
from somewhere deep down inside.

This I cannot stand, as the darkness covers the tips,
till the hands and feet are obscured, my mind ripped.
The dead night calls home to a face unknown,
a man beaten, his own kindness shown.

The death of a fighter, as his punch enters back,
is the saddest possible to such a supplied gun rack.
The bile sheds the skin once true,
before these red lips turned so blue.

He still walks in the shadow,
a frozen speaking icicle.
Trapped within, a soul cries out,
only to be ignored by his spritely sickle.

A grace and number so white as snow,
has been shown grace ripped and shackled by its own growth,
a direction irreversible, the train comes slow,
yet out of its way, he cannot, will not throw.

The oak, battered, bruised beyond all recognition,
Is like the grave, bare of all life's inhibition.