This Is the Gift

This is the Gift Life is a trap with iron jaws Merciless to the last degree, My father beat us well enough And Fortune always flee from me. What is Life without Romance But the grim parade of corpses? Shadows, illusion and poor sparse soil That kills you as you till it. I wear a leper’s clothing It’s all than I have left: I can’t remove the rancor I feel For the author of this madness. Trapped? Cramped? Bit to the bone? Paralyzed in Arctic graves? Promises: denied, denied, denied? This is the gift that God gave.