"Pyre" (1994) by Steven Ilchev

Pyre

/Steven Ilchev, 1994/

I seem to have become an old man so aged,

I feel I ought to die for the good of all the nations

And the catchers in the rye

Through all the years that I ploughed I wept

My only sweet desire to be 'lone in cowardice

And extinguish on the pyre

For the pyre seethes with ire and the crops are

Growing free, Apollo plays the mournful lyre

With commitment to the beast

I wrote of days of effervescence; I wreathed them

In a head and chilled them in an icy letter to a

Hedgehog of another Earth;

For whom my lips were dry

For the pyre seethes with ire and the crops are

Growing free, Apollo plays the mournful lyre

With commitment to the beast

With time the rivage is beclouded from my vision

And I begin to fall apart

It seems I have been always near

A pillow of the opaque sleep

For the pyre seethes with ire and the crops are

Growing free, I am committed to the lyre

In wanton feelings to expire!