Sonnet: To Time

Today we move in jade and cease with garnet Amid the ticking jeweled clocks that mark Our years. Death comes in a casual steel car, yet We vaunt our days in neon and scorn the dark. But outside the diabolic steel of this Most plastic-windowed city, I can hear The lone wind raving in the gutter, his Voice crying exclusion in my ear. So cry for the pagan girl left picking olives Beside a sunblue sea, and mourn the flagon Raised to toast a thousand kings, for all gives Sorrow; weep for the legendary dragon. Time is a great machine of iron bars That drains eternally the milk of stars.