Beauty Turned Away

Best overall poem.

The spring rain mutters constantly
like a neighbor not yet insane
but unstable enough to vex me
with a pouring metallic voice.

She twirls the hair of wet grass
demanding nothing but poets this night;
joining her with their quills of imagery
that bleed upon the fresh page.

I am as still as the hunter's bowstring
enjoying the moment of glorified senses,
able to heal the deaf parables
that sit with the lame.

I am the quiet intruder's pulse
who lies in the master's bed
able to remember a father
who once loved me.

The rain, my messenger of melting glass
waits for me, in the high courts of boredom -
a beauty turned away a thousand times this night
like coins of youth tied to a wish, and soon forgotten.


D. Hiles