Artificial

There it was on first sight
The usual tinge, the expected
feeling suffusing delight
Then why now so dejected?

Have I lost my pen?
My words, my heart perhaps?
Missing the possibility just when-
they slowly begin to unwrap

Like a candle in the turbulent-
wind, seeking refuge in its own
dying light. Finding mere diffident
illusions where it once shone

Where now is that promise?
That shy faithful gleam
amidst the looming crevice
of a disenchanted dream?

Fallen into the chasms
of sleepy memory. Lost
like the nameless phantasms
of a silent creeping frost


And yet I keep treading
Every stroke of my pen nitid
with tentative courage, murmuring
each word with resolute bid


For Though this poem be artificial
my thoughts of You are not