The sand that creeps around the rock
The base of that column, lonesome
The valley, splayed in beige and flaking
Sands,
Fallow and constant--
The cold marble, weathered and soft
And lost is the rigor of its shape.
In old age it has grown pale,
White, cracked, sinking into the grains
And I watched with solemn gaze
between the tightened gasps of breath
Thinking in good time to watch
The sinking of this fated tower
Upon the rustic sea of rock
And I watched.
Pompey, the last vigil for our Trojan souls
With no way to mount this feeling
And guide it to the pastures of the east
Or comprehend the rudiment
Of the west--
What phoenix keeps the desert in its crop
And feeds these grains to hungry beaks?
I could not satiate these thoughts,
The burning of my heart that dripped
From the embers of that bird, aloft
Pompey, for your sake--
Do not give your name
This place, the knaves, the cruel
Failure of council
Will be our end of days
As it knew yours.
Please forgive us,
We have no place to run
No Coptic King nor Ptolemaic ring
No sigh but sin within this vein
We are legion
Humming the prayers of heroes sung
When Quaestors rap upon the snare
For tides of valor left in blood
We are the mist of that
Coagulated stuff,
Bound upon the rock
And left to Love.
