rotten apple

by Linda M. Crate

you ring loudly bells of despair caught in the whistling
wind; your purport seemingly the one task of annoying us -

lingering where you should not past your point of welcome
an uninvited wedding guest partaking of the wine to drown
out all acquired sense and reason if only for a brief moment

pleasure is the only thing you seem to crave truly as you
fall an autumn leaf gold and brown to the rigid earth

once you dreamed that you would change the world

but now all you do is drum your foot fall against old
haunts that have no desire to remember your shadows, you
are only a ghost of what you ought to be; you withered and spoiled.