Classic Poem

I longed for martyrdom
as a boy—saintdom or stardom,
some way to swindle doom,
by which I meant death. Dumb?
Perhaps. I'm quick to condemn
the boy I was, his quondam
terror now turned to dim
hopes of a durable kingdom—
heaven or the boredom
of someone reading in a dorm
—at the lash of academe!—
these words I deem wisdom.
But what do they redeem?
(That and, at one time, a dime…)
Art's memorandum
to the future is seldom,
if read, respected.
Doom,
I'd love to call death doom,
and untrifle it, though, damn,
I hate the paradigm:
departure's thralldom
to drama's diadem.
May death—mine, yours—seldom
be doom but gently random,
merely an addendum
to life's agenda, and doom,
when doom must come in tandem,
bring respite before freedom.

Used by permission of the author.