7Okay, disclaimer: This poem might be hard to understand, I'm not sure. So I put a description at the bottom, written in second person. Good luck, haha.
Embryonic life fades
As the morn of day
Every subtle wind change
Escapes the human way
What now for valor?
Has gone that as well?
Wilted as the flower
Heading straight for hell
But strain you now the smallest bit
For in these words a tourniquet
Confused on where? Don't fail to hearken
Yet holding still, for here waits heaven
This molds in me a wanting glair
And waits upon my gravest dare
And when I should be e'er so bold
My death I seal with secrets told
Apologize, I shall indeed
To no avail, take bended knee
And pay respects to one god forgotten
And lean me then on my silver stanchion
For stability lies within the man
His ability shown with gold in hand
Weep you now for I have failed
Yet I avow that some have sailed
And risen high above their brothers
To be a light among the others
To these bright few I tip my cap
For in them lies the fullest tap
Here then is your little secret
Walk with those who are so frequent
To find their way above the rest
To find themselves among the best
Okay, so like babies grow up into human imperfection and imperfect humans don't perceive the uh, the… beautiful…subtleties of life like minor wind changes. Basically the first eight lines are just about how bad we are as people. Then it goes to say that there are words within the poem itself that can help us lose our failures… hence the tourniquet metaphor. "Confused on where?" It is asking the reader if he/she is confused as to the location of the "tourniquet" within the poem and it goes to say that the reader should listen, or pay attention despite the fact that they do not know where the good news is within the poem just yet. Now it's back to talking about people, how we're just here (holding still kind of means like stuck on Earth) because this is our ticket to heaven. Knowing that heaven waits for him, the writer begins to desire it, yet he knows that heaven is just waiting for him to screw up, and when he does he will screw himself by telling heaven's secret. Then it's talking about how so many pay respects to God as more of a formality than anything more pure than that, and that right after they're done making themselves morally cleansed, they go right back to things material, symbolized by the "silver stanchion". We decide how stable we really are and most men judge each other based on their status regarding wealth (obviously the writer doesn't like this idea). The writer has failed in his attempts to negate this human instinct, but recognizes that many have reached a status more worthy of heaven than himself.
As it turns out, the secret is simply to allow those who are already full on the path to heaven to help the reader find their own path – basically like those positive pier pressure lectures you used to get from your mom.