The Sanctum of Sanity

Elegy for a Fox

Displayed upon the pub’s stark wall,

a small, now silent fox’s head

casts its final blind and mindless stare

across the bar,

where a careless crowd of rowdy men,

cheerfully ignore the fact,

that its tired and tarnished plaque,

proclaims a small, sad,

act of cruel sport.

Caught in the concerns of greater kills,

it’s no surprise that this,

its last and glass eyed gaze

should fail to amaze, or, move their

proven need to seed the air

with failure on a larger scale.

And why; among them all,

should its panting tongue

be sung a dirgeful song?

When all the wrong we’ve done

to each, and everyone,

can teach us to reserve

our highest curve of grief

for the relief of human death.

Where breath has been extinguished

on more distinguished fields,

than those, where hunted foxes

lose the final chase.

In secret places, where

the bloody brush is smeared

on young and hot flushed cheeks.

which future joys of innocence

shall send a blush of coyness,

that will mask the tainted,

painted skin,

that hides within the tender face

the sublimating carnal race,

and their meager fall from grace.

Our belief that the demise

of one small and scruffy thief

merits no surprise, and prompts

no whys of conscience to disturb

the placid path of easy laughter,

The fox’s death is understood,

against the scale,

which needs the ill of greater deeds

to feed the will to action.

But, after all the tall and

bright-eyed-bushy-tales are told,

we still unfold the tragic fact

that whilst we can accommodate

the common fate of one small

and furry pest, then, crest its

tiny severed head, with deadly pride

beside forgetful fruits for all to see,

we shall not mend the mind

which finds exhilaration

in annihilation of a nation state.

The same force, which seeks

a source of joy from the safety

of the ritual death of one small life,

can plunge the knife into a thousand guts.

Or, stand aside, and watch the tide of blood;

flood from the cuts

which bleed humanity to death.

©James Rainsford 2011

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