A poem written with a set meter (a few lines broken for emphasis) and rhyme.

The Cripple’s Dance


When my belov’d brother lay colder than Pluto in endless rest
A dragon claw shredded my anvil hermit heart
Of venomous Despair swelling inside my chest.
I daily yearned that Death at me would hurl his dreadful dart.

Carnivore fangs of Fate sawed off his trunks of bone,
His flesh bark stumps were sorely stuffed in wooden pegs.
Alone he kicked his stick cymbals together’n’sang low moans
While drowning his pleading liver with tipp’d bottles’n’dregs.

Returned, clear-chained to his chair, he longed the lovely lasses
And from a distance watched them kiss his former-friends.
At home he scolded his wood-legs with ‘jack’ slashes
Scorning the Lord– rejoiced his knees to Him could ne’er ‘gain bend.

In furious tears sometimes would attempt to walk around,
The blood from his bashed broken nose still stains the floor.
He forgot the feel of naked feet ‘pon green-ground;
Yearned to forget the soldier’s eyes who died on him in War.

His purple heart quickly turned black.
Mounds of broken bottle bits still infest his floor more numerous then sand.
“Brother, I’ve Failed!” I shout shackl’d to Guilt’s twisting rack...
My brother stole his own life with his own untrembling hands.