Worm

Hope is lost to squirming tunnels,
juices flow in little runnels.
Ingrates slink in veiled defiles,
creepers grate through a lost losel.
Nauseant worms gouge in the will,
browsing nematodes, cerebral Hell.

Irascible groucher, marplot!
Acerbic thought produces rot.
Deliberate uncompliance;
putrid recondite defiance.
Your grievances add up to nil.
Destroying fellowship is fell.

Independence?  Your master is sin.
Freedom in word, slavery in deed.
Your soul is so dehiscent with germ
that you have no conscience left to squirm.
Your habit, not now your choice, decrees
emulation of a dying worm.

Michael Scudder
(creative writing class at Clarkson)(revised some years later)