deepundergroundpoetry.com

youth with an arrow

Amongst human faces moved
The inhuman pallor of the moon
Hover'd in silence, an eternity low
To grieve in pursuit of possession so
To see thee pried wide in living day and woeful dark
To hold all your great share of endless pain and more
And keep safe from fiercest love or foe.

Perhaps in distant Heaven there is a care, but here
No righteous banners upon these winds do dare; �
Here compassion is naught but mercenary,
Though Lord knows at times I tried

To fly as eagles fly
But I died & died
& she
Sat herself aside
And nearly cried,
Piteous as the mournful melody which strips
The hide from our unquiet night alive.

Pursued and struck in murd'rous mud, �
Beneath a reaving canopy of Roman sun
To sup ever of Siren's salt tears and drawn blood,
That rained my head clean to ruin

- And so slipped the shadows o'er Sebastian,
Stuck red with a thousand Roman quills -
Though my bartered heart beats still and shrill,
Bound in black chimes of a rhyme sounding underground
Oh ye tenderhearted,
But how they fell upon us then
Nigh until death runneth eternally over,
To wither the life from my breast and his and hers and theirs -

- - and to pour over and over the hands of dear Irene,
All through the long chill night and blood-shot dawn, She,
Piously on her knees for thee
Curled as thou are, on the cold Cathedral lawn.

And there, where the soft pyre of muses divine
Sparks white light upon my heavily-lidded mind; �
�� But sings no love songs for thee,
Ye fluted bones of angels, dig,
�For I am stripped fairly bare to the core
By dagger, club, and trident tongue.

�� - And so it was that I went my own lone way
�� To storm the wicked world and wild �
�� Under the relentless arc of arrows falling,
�� Loosed from, oh I know not where
But for you, my purest and dearest love, for you oh thou, �
�� I have learned to wear the bolts and quarrels well
�� Down the blinding days alight
�� And down the nights of fiery hell.

And Say O Sebastian damn the damages babe,
Base and mean as only war knows; and let us taste anew
By the shrapnel trod into the silver skin of youth
Where beats still
�The universal heart of saints and sinners both,
For surely in truth, are we not such Sons of the atmosphere, �
And equally Daughters of the atom all?

& Let not the weight of death ruminate
Harshly and heavily atop thy remnants
Wreathed now in holy holy remembrance
And holding high as all antiquity of a billion billion disbelieving eyes
That blink blearily as one infinite sorrow
And also one undying need and cry.

(Sebastian collage by Various)