Of Bonfires And Rainbows

Sometimes used to think that babies could only dwell In their special realm, of sweet baby smells; Tidy white crib, with the even spaced bars. Pony lamps too, pink and yellow and blue. And sweet tasting sugary medicines To help the sick babies get better again And such soft, cottony diapers Held with pastel-headed pins: All softness and gurgle and coo. But even baby has to go away sometimes; The little blue eyes glaze over Like a doll's souless eyes, of factory hardened glass That only can stare in one direction now; And their sweetly puffed blushing cheeks Become multi-colored, like the rainbow- Only, there's too many colors now. In soft mud then, we must plant carefully The little stilled hearts; While we will tell them, they're only playing a part In Jack and the Beanstalk. And if you listen attentively, on some cold-bitten night, Around the edges of the wind's cacophony You might hear inconsolable crying, again. It's just the orphan; the one With the strange rainbows Now blooming fearsomely, in his cheeks And a worm cocooning, in his eye; Alone under the ground, with all their softly rotting dreams Beginning to turn gangrenous, inside of him And all the pretty, pastel furniture is burning On the bonfire, and Daddy's drunk again And Mother's barricaded herself somewhere, and can't stop crying And Hell is very cold indeed, With nothing at all Left of warmth In spite of what the stories all say.