The Mire

This year, the eighteenth, bore stone in the slab

It bore me scars and marks, that I never should have

However, however without cuts and the wounds

I would never have come and set by the pool

It brought me close to the edge, so that I may drink

Here lies a place with no thinking to think

The water was fine and the ground wasn't soiled

Here lies the land that time hasn't spoiled

The air was neither ailing cold, nor warming strong

But somehow, god knows, there was something wrong

I was drinking the water, that came from a bog

Yes, there looming over was the greyest of fog

This wasn't a pool or the heavenly ground

The pool was standing and the earth, a mound.

Why did I see beauty and this swamp at its best?

Was it some f*****g message? Or some f*****g test?

Did I pass flying colours? Is there a price I should tote?

I kept thinking some more when a voice loudly spoke

"Boy by the bog, thou saw what a wanderer'th see

Thou shunned veneer and saw what you wanted to be.

Come, your not the first to have fell fall of the fool

I hope you coming trailing and learn from the pool"

With a snap he was gone and I finally stood

"I've set by the edge so more than I should"

As I strode through the reeds, I now read them as red

I realise now what the swamp, and voice had said

Check not for the pool, but check for the mire

Don't fit what is wrong around your desire