LA ROSE ET L'ÉPINE

Arrière Pensée

I stood there...
That was all that I could dare,
or would do;
only stand dumb and numb,
as Cephas, weeping,
and stare at the man,
seemingly sleeping,
whose life was
slowly
seeping
from a
long,
carmine seam
neatly sewn
into his left side,
just below his Adam's bone,
a thin,
fine
scar,
surgically incised
by a fiendishly honed
Damascene
steel
Scimitar.

Beneath the distant howls and
clangs of the diminishing battle,
I heard, what I believed
to be a moan.
No, my hearing conceived,
more or less,
it to be a groan,
but I doubted this
and I soon perceived this
to be a sonic mirage,
a delusion
spawned by a hopeful
dread,
for I knew him to be dying
or already dead.
An overwhelming desire
urged me to rush to his aid,
but due to my reason
I knew it to be folly,
and I only stood
heavy footed,
for the wound was too deep
and too fatal;
and because of my arrière pensée,
I was as rooted,
as a cedar of Lebanon,
to the ground.
Still...
A stray sound...
"Karl?"
Frederick asked and beckoned me nearer.
"Am I alive?"
I nodded,saying,
"And, I am here, Sir."

Le Sang des Fidèles

Of a sudden,
a cold and mighty surge of shame
washed over me.
I felt an urgent need
to flee from this realm and
ride down this dry Wadi of Ignominy,
and fly into the furtive domain of Hell,
then crawl into an adamantine shell
to hide myself,
to hide my name.
My dishonor?
I could not,
or would not,
thwart the sword blow
that maimed my lord
and felled him to the earth.
But, I did not go away.
With my bloody claymore dangling
from a gauntleted,
enfeebled hand,
stained with the blood of the faithful.
I crouched near
to better hear
his command.
I was afraid that I was witnessing
his last moments drawing near,
afraid to exist
without his might
to guide me through
this darkness terrible,
lost his beacon light
agleam on my sea of night.
I lightly braced him so he
could slightly lift himself upon an elbow.
I feared further pain to him,
so I only knelt,
young head bowed,
as would a man much older.
Then, I felt his huge hand clamp my shoulder.

"Karl?" He wheezed.

"Yes, my lord. I am here."
I answered again,
but I swear,
I was losing all sense
of reason and rhyme,
the season in time
and whether or not
I was really here,
or there...

Ostium Apertum In Caelo

I soared upwards,
yet I looked down,
as I was floating
like a cloud,
to see my body
on the ground.
"Behold!"
I heard
the Logos
sounding loudly;
like unto a thunder,
like unto a waterfall,
like unto shofars
resounding beyond number.
"Look!"
Said one like a son of man.
"What do you see?"
Pointing toward
a latten sea.
How can I tell this tale?
Where to begin?
And where is the end
of this fable?
Thus?