Golgatha

I was a witness to his bloody death.
It was a thing of torment and distress
for him, this would-be Jewish King.
He could not breathe
unless he forced his legs
to biting pain
upon the nails that spiked his heels
against the knot within the planted upright
he, exhausted, sweat streaked,
dangled from.
And yet not once
was he then heard to voice disdain
upon his murderers
or cry out curses on the hungry dogs
that snarled and bared their teeth
beneath him there, waiting and aprowl
within a death-watch vigiling
to be allowed by soldier barked commands
to make his hanging flesh
a ragged feast.
He only, at his end,
sang out some sacred lines
brimmed full of sorrow and despair.
And darkness then descended
on the earth.