No lie, that last one is my favourite Haiku ever.
In silent contemplation of the past
A chest of drawers leans its battered head
Upon the wall, stalwart as any mast;
Though all its crew are long since dead,
Still it remembers hands that brushed its wood
And maybe exhaled on the varnish, hoping that
A mist would blemish its perfection
Or lend it some new regal air.
Around, other remnants are beached
In perfect, calculated cold indifference.
The Belleek is mixed with Tyrone,
Mahogany brushes stately shoulders with the oak
And, worst of all, that idle puff of gilt
Which once gleamed on a Clock's grand crown
Has fallen off and is degraded in the dust.
Behold inheritance, the past of the future.
When tomorrow comes, like some Grotesque
A body rises through that hatch and breathes the dust,
Then looks about for the old and the frail, to sell.
And so the hands that loved and cleaned, then failed
Send newer ones to look with cold, unloving eye
Upon the loyal and the fair. The chest of drawers
Is the first to go, dragged through the dust
As by some predator. Who can say whether to leave
Is to be given life, or to be made to die?
For tomorrow: A
Rondeau