daughter

student

holy ordained slave

beloved to carry the shadows, to keep the pearls of your Love beneath our tongue

to preserve Beauty

we are the estranged, the assigned to remain empty

to mirror Light, remaining always only the reflections of Haqq

she has become my distant lover. my heels crave the cracked holiness of her cobblestone. old city, dome, wall, burial you are still circling at my feet. now i only feel at home when i am close to the ground. mimicking the comfort i found at her feet - Jerusalem

Two thousand years
Regressing past the cross
Lead bites bitter as bronze
Gaza rages

The brimstone and fire you promised
You delivered
Apostle bound crusader
Jewish Lucifer

Yes, it's yet another magical "Barry Hodges" poem!*

Some people think that Jerusalem is an interesting old city,
Full of pretzels, gefilte fish and more matzo ***** than you could count
(albeit not the best place in the world if you fancy a nice pork chop
or indeed a tasty plate of bacon and eggs with some black pudding
and don't even think of eating out on a Friday night).
But there is another side to this vibrant metropolis
With its interesting mixture of east and east.
Dear reader, believe me, I kid you not! For I have been there
And I have seen it in all its hideous horror and violence.

I was there, wandering gaily near that boo-hoo wall
(all that remains of the old temple, thanks to Titus),
With my young nephew Ignatius, a total ****** of immense girth,
Who had moreover a staggering stutter and a load of ****** boils,
(which meant he sprayed people with pus when he spoke).
Oh alas and alack! A gang of ill-dressed American youths,
(probably the sons of immigrant businessmen or diplomats
or even the illegitimate descendants of head-nodding rabbis),
High as kites on Pepsi-cola, or some other plebeian muck,
Came running at us with their plastic machetes at the ready,
And I wisely scarpered like a cute choirboy with a priest on my tail,
Leaving fat Iggy to face the music tutto solo in his wheelchair.

Now, prepare to weep tears of laughter, for they left him
Lying in the gutter, like a giant squashed pizza,
His legs broken to bits and his head half sawn off,
And for what, I hear you ask? Well, they were envious
Of his neon combined skullcap and hairpiece (it made him look
half-human, a major improvement on his normal hideous state).
Poor Iggy dragged out a miserable half-alive existence
For a few awful months in a dilapidated infirmary;
Dear God, he will not be going back to Jerusalem in a hurry;
In fact he'll be going nowhere except six feet under.
(I was thinking of donating his wheelchair to the Gaza Relief Fund
but they can't afford the UPS charge for the transportation,
and it's a bit blood-and-brains-spattered anyway.)

Decisions come from the turmoil of the mind. As it questions your character and self-righteousness. Choice, is the will to give your action an ending. Two kinds of consequences hover in the place of THAT choice. The Righteous consequence and the justified consequence. 
 The wise bring the righteous to the poor, they walk as lions, but herd as shepards to their sheep. Despite the unveiling indications of destruction, the time of glory will come to pass as the king.
 Our lives are not simple, we have destinys that were never heard of and rules that werent really applied. We are indeed mortal, but it does not make a fool out of the insane. A jester may jest to please his mistress, and fight a boar to please his lord, but his choice of action still stands and a question remains... Why?
 There is a simple resolution to the cause and effect. You gain important friendships to nobles and royalty, you get a whole new world of opportunities to boot. Decision... Comes from both the mind and the heart, you must choose who to follow at that time of strife.
 Young one.. My daughter. Disperse from the pride and wealth of people. Escape your past and seek true fortune from within your soul. The time of war for our kind has just begun! Mount your righteous dragon Jerusalem, he will serve you until death. Soar into battle! Now, in the heat of the moment. The battle of Rider versus kingdom commences. Seek out the Menoaya tree, uncover the truth and find victory. You are destined for greatness my dark one... Choose your path, I will love you always.. Goodbye, Kekay.

That monk
in the refectory
of the abbey,

bespectacled
with dark curly hair
like a cissy girl,

gave me the stare
as if I shouldn't be there,
but maybe

he wasn't
looking at me at all,
perhaps at the opposite wall

or a monk behind me
who stared back at him
with equal stare

wishing maybe
he wasn't there.
I cleaned the bogs

on the second floor,
swept the cloister
as if some

holy street
or one of them
in Jerusalem

where He once walked
or strolled with others
before the Roman's

did Him in.
The old peasant monk
sharpened his scythe

on the narrow stone,
before continuing
to cut the tall grass,

lonesome looking,
humble, God blessed,
as if not alone.