Shade

Is it yellow?
The mellow shade
made and laid at steps
Blood of Caesar
trickles to please the faceless fiend
of an easier life
Easily I’ve deferred
reverence to perturbed stones
that rattle underfoot
Why battle blunder put
square in face of futility?
Dutifully doomed by brutally pruned
prudence and pride
Pushing dead aside to stride by
strewn entity
which entered he
so fervently stapled
from nape to navel
to nasal nothingness
Abed, unblessed
but tested by restful residence
A presence of pretence
and fading feathers
as the duck down
much bound
hell for leather heretic
boards up dwelling
ready for selling
Smelling iron in air
Taste in tongue and nose
Body lain amidst hemlock and rose