"Outside, a Blunt Wind Shatters..."

I was puzzled by this sonnet until analysis revealed what I had forgotten - it is written in syllabics.

-----------

Outside, a blunt wind shatters the September
Garden. Generals in a forest clearing
Shake hands on a truce, agree to dismember
A province. Bribed and fed, their troops start cheering.

Pulling the curtains on such loud-mouthed weather

A Head of Department must once have settled
To his work, sampling speeches bound in leather,
The province rich, the borders firm, roads metalled.

The world decays. What purpose now the marbled

Halls, booming with the counter-claims of lawyers?
Men are slaughtered; mercenaries in garbled
Lingo chatter at the killing like voyeurs.

And what is left of joy but lovers vainly

Flesh to flesh, hot in their love-clasp, ungainly?

====================

© September 1983