Forever at Half-Mast (experimental sonnet rhyme scheme included)

[alatos]

Thanks so much for all the suggestions! Here's my first edit:

I think I am a flag, forever at
half-mast, and drooping in a windless dusk,
hung scarcely twitching like a crumpled husk
when corn-worms, swollen, slow, and waxy-fat
creep out of their exhausted habitat,
to unfurl on their journey to the sky.
A flag whose destiny's to never fly,
but watch the sun go down below the flat,
unending earth, and tremble at my doom-
the hopeless night, and then be lowered down…
and folded up, and placed into my tomb:
an unmarked box, kept in an empty room,
an unremembered shelf, an unknown town,
and leave a naked rod stuck in the ground.


Original:
I think I am a flag, forever at
half-mast, and hanging in a windless dusk,
then sometimes twitching like a crumpled husk
when corn-worms, swollen, slow, and waxy-fat
creep out of their exhausted habitat,
and set out on their journey to the sky.
But I, a flag that’s doomed to never fly,
but watch the sun go down below the flat,
unending earth, and tremble at my doom-
the hopeless night, and then be lowered down…
and folded up, and placed into my tomb:
an unmarked box, kept in an empty room,
an unremembered shelf, an unknown town,
and leave a naked rod stuck in the ground.