It's not usual

It’s not usual to feast on snap-dragons in the cold months

Or run naked through un-sketched woods reeking of incense

And gloom, ridiculing the battered men on crudely carved crosses-

Dribble running from their loose-lipped mouths tumbling into rivers.

The soul, recently discoloured, doesn’t stay long in such corrosive

Environments where time runs furiously along a thin elastic band

Springing backwards then stretched to eternity.

It isn’t usual to feast on snap-dragons in the cold months

Keeping warm before the incumbent gates of hell

Afraid to sweep the snow away from the garden and live.

To sweep away the snow, now turning brown, and gild

With shafts of gold the fallen lily.