The Broken Sousaphone
Golden stranger on the wall,
Morningstar after the Fall,
Who would mount a sousaphone
That could so easily sing on?

Who felled you and robbed for parts
Those valves, stole a dragon's heart?
Who, thou monument to waste,
Made you but a gilded vase?

What pretense, what artifice,
Took that fierce, that blazing life?
What hand left a thunder king
Impotent his storms to fling?

You lived as a cornerstone,
And in death shine on thy bones.
Who destroyed a voice that shook
Football fields? What fingers took

Those great pistons from their work
Shaping the sound, left you to lurk
There upon the art room shelf
Useless to us, to yourself?

Golden stranger on the wall,
Morningstar after the Fall,
Who would mount a sousaphone
That could so easily sing on?

This is my imitation my favorite poem, "The Tiger," by William Blake.

The Tiger
Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?