Collateral

Tell them twas not all in vain

The long dark hours in freezing rain

Tell them it was naught for gain
Of wordly things but higher realms

That meant we had to take up arms
Gainst enemy whose face we paint
So we can push that dagger
And watch his brains splatter

And imagine twas for greater good.

Tell them dread not freezing seas
If we must die and die we must
A tomb with whales swimming above
Is more serene than cities stained

And forests raped we've left behind.

So smirk behind that oak tree desk
And watch as blood stained table chess
Becomes alive and consumes the fire
Of angel saying we all must die.

Who...

"who scribbled all night rocking and rolling over lofty incantations which in the yellow morning were stanzas of gibberish,"

[but before then, in midnight Silver Chair, were frightening unbearable unbared truth]

who, when tiredness and wine drew out the blood-liquid

from their capillaries-fingers

like tingled yellow crystals to prick and tear from inside

when hope withdrew like tired shells

of echoed songs of rejected thoughts

of chambers null and void and pointers

foxes pubs and drawl; "echo, fox" and public brawl

speckled truth; speckled, ken?

never return, heading town, meadow port and all the cherubim draw their unseen swords, where not even the oxen shall cross their fjords...

who indeed, will call me by my true name

or to whom can I read out the scroll,

my seeming complaint

till we have faces

till we can bear to look in the mirror

of shame tired pain and care