Anonymous

No wind shall bear my name nor fire blaze
In honour of my loss before the crows
Pick at the wasted flesh that longed to laze,
Defiant of the path the deep-heeled shows.
I pick a word and toss it to the sea
Hoping to spread a lie that blossoms true,
Yet still is fortune numb regarding me
For salted water grows not joy nor rue.
Yet, free of that capricious eye, what may
Become the slighted hand who pens his will
In line on line until his final day,
Bequeathing all to death who claims the quill?
Perhaps it is a good a life as any,
For words of one need not the praise of many.

Non-Anonymous

The drowning dog needs not his fore-paws dry
To raise his head and howl beyond the space
Allotted by those masters swinging high,
Eager to branch ahead and clinch the race.
From undertow I gait with scrappy wiles,
Pleasing the trees yet not the hungered crow,
Whose voiding wing such exercise reviles
When certain is the fate of meat below.
Yet will a dog far from his kennel run,
Breaking the ape-chain grinding flesh to dust,
Cursing the moon while bounding t’ward the sun
To burn within its sphere because he must.
For though the master often has his way,
Occasionally a dog will have his day.