A Broken Scholar...

rancid sighs of a broken scholar,
brandished mockery as a crown -
nerves mined for tributes,
in stale anthologies of frowns.

this soul's a dead man's photograph,
a band of lesser angels in frame.
chose a body to die with and
rode the subtle wood with immortal ones.

wrote a book named 'My Tombstone',
moled furrows in my bones, saying:

'Marry at your prime the follies of yester-years, and
squander your excess peers with all trapped gains and fears'.