Alchemic Verse

By miracle’s experiment
By cosmic flint and steel
A name first marking life’s portent
A label made me real

Violently the nurture tooling
What nature made at core
And whichever overruling
The other kept the score

And from that war I bore
A definition

By suffering’s predicament
By broken home and heart
A weight to bear in discontent
A warping from the start

Painfully the words collecting
What nurture scarred and stole
And known misery selecting
The mastered wounded role

And feigned control to hold
Each inhibition

By prophecy’s equivalent
By self-fulfilling sign
A like for like of ill-intent
A numbness made it mine

Cyclically the song repeating
What nurture learned to play
And conflating love with needing
The nature was betrayed

And in decay I stayed
In fear’s submission

By intervention heaven sent
By cosmic chance and choice
An ember glowed and grew hellbent
An ear had heard a voice

Finally the nature singing
What nurture gagged and choked
And open space loss cleared still ringing
The crash of all that broke

And in the smoke awoke
A new ambition