Orpheus

Bronze wires choiring.
Orpheus
lifts his fire-lyre

spilling and splitting the air with fire,
dark Orpheus—
bronze-choiring wires.

His ill lips sized to song, higher
and higher with mourning force
he lifts his fire-lyre

as aureate rocks crack, expiring
like colors rupture flower-trees
or bronze choiring wires.

As the firm-fleece of the hill
   fractures from its muddy sods and mires
as chill-silted as agonizing oils wrung
          from the plangent eyes of Orpheus
     who sifts his wound-bright lilt
   of lamentation, lift-
ing his fire-lyre.

No song stuns back the dead from their stunted grave
   no matter inspired, uninspired.
Tired words work the flat absent world, so would the world
   be re-ordered and regress as Orpheus could not but must yet desire
          and desire
as bronze-fired wires choir
as he lifts his lyre.

Copyright © 2006 Adam Fitzgerald All rights reserved
from The Modern Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission