Sonnet #20
O, I am caught between the monk and fool
Am haunted by the clunk of lock and chain
when holidays become privacy’s bane
with ghosts in drag like Ebenezer’s ghouls
the partied past does now seem faint and cruel
Bedraggled mem’ries reread fade to grains
of sand where gold light shines from trusted thanes
The crutch is mine. The sand my tomb. Death rules.
And each good friend is striking like a tool
Upon the harden’d heart of my gravestone
rewrite the epitaph and carve my bone
That I may be a stew and not a gruel
My solitary life may then atone
when out will leap the Jester like a jewel
Phil Wyman: Dim Saesneg 