Classic Poem

Ironical the phantoms men portray
Who torture self and flagellate the flesh,
Excoriate transgressions of the clay
Failing to help the spirit to enmesh
The essence or quintessence of a flight
Of lofty symbols to elaborate
The idol which their ego loves to sight:
The soul a bird of air, without a weight.

And as they watch the self rise on a dream,
Cleaving the sun and titillating peaks,
The snow and clouds companions of the scheme,
And rivulets the cadences it speaks,
They leave to fate the lonely wing's ideal
The while great buzzards swoop and rend the real.