plunder
with this hand i shall plunder
and if those future shades
float upon the soul fed rivers
veins unfortunate beneath the caverns
halls that redound of failure and cries
to lost and fleeting lives like flocking bats
that herd among those cold aphotic rended vaults
and if the heel and weakness of Achilles
were in truth his ego or his theft of life
then those dark vanquished souls would not declaim my skill
that fame remains upon their named and unnamed souls
for they fell athwart the door to sanity
when wild and wilderness to men are known
and yet have no guiding peak or feature track-way
or herbal remedy like croton oil rubbed as lineament
none but only Trojans drugged by mandrake roots
and symbolism thrown upon the pyre
that legend builds - its fires bogus beacons
whose smoke poisons then draws from open mouths
to pinch and lead the tongues on to stories far astray
from logic and humanity
then I was that pathologic path into that same wilderness and fame
derived from esteemed strength and iconoclastic stature
a man promoted by his destiny to be
the icon of venerated war
but did i breed war
i think from the loins of anguish
that a hero may be justified to anger
and if that anger is extreme then so it is
only the reflection in a pool of loss
and if the algae of the waters bred slime
and discouraged a clear vision of that hatred
then that unguent is too part of a man
as are the purity of the clearest springs
of heaven from which the rain falls
and cleanses and which aggregates
with our blemished pond and pool of character
in the doctrine well of being no man should die
by another's hostile fist or fears
no war is justified except the war within ourselves
but once the chains of compromise are snapped
and the slaves of greed or ego or whatever other
fragile motivation set in train
then anarchic gears of retribution engaged and roll
for certainly i know that few men in my time
have the vision or the creative keys
to wish or prime the mechanisms of a wiser world
and so my closest friend and bond
was slain in my own image
and though the slights of many i have stood
this was a love too far
beyond the bounds of reason
there is a cherished place where we will meet
and the fates upon the plains decreed
that in the gladiatorial way so man shall meet man
and then himself
and in his own battle strife so he may find
that core and define its reason and its bounds
or it may collapse as when a stone is thrown
into the ponds reflection and sinks below
convictions placid surface leaving little rippled rings
that out like small echos in the vaulted halls beneath
the strata deep beneath our standing or our understanding
while all above is fake like life