Glass Menagerie

By Mark L. Moran © 1997

Glass Menagerie

Cold, a drip straight and true
the ice translucent blue.   
Welded columns touching ground,
hollow through and through.

 No where to go but up. 
 Into this cathedral  called. 
The Glass Menagerie,   
where mind and body fight the fall.

Fear cavorting with the cold,
driving splinters through my shivered soul. 
Pure like crystal, clear.
My ax is drawn with battle's rage.
 Upward, time to climb.


Motion, moving, targets, with malice I attack! 
Axes flying, driven deeply straight and true.
Savagely bite the ice of blue,
the cold, and the fear.

 In cold, and calculating  motion,  
with death standing near,   
 I lust for life and fight my fear. 
and upward, with the climb.

Saturation. I can fear no more than 
I fear now, and still my mind thinks clear.
And upward climbs. 

Axes flying driven deeply, savagely bite the ice.
Feet with fangs, steel claws for kicking!
Horrid is this vice.

 Now fear's sister comes 
with malice to the fight. 
And tries with pain what fear did fight.
And death still standing near.  
 To test my past and judge my might.  
And still... I upward climb.

Pain soon grips my every sinew. 
And in spasm I am bound.
Fear's price has been my strength.    
Too far above the ground.

The axes drop, head to spine, artful in their arc.
The drooping steel hooks deeply,
in body, mind, and ice.
Tearing through the hollow disarray.
Ever upward, I must climb.
 


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