Perilous, he called the days
of towers guarded by the walls
of Troy, though her six gates
ne'er permitted pain to enter.

But then my joys were
numbered as Priam's sons:
one two three four five six;
I could not count them all
in one breath.

Unnatural, he called the days
of armoured knights and wars
fought in valour though death in
his shroud danced beside them all.

But then my heart ne'er
knew the song of a twisted
breaking heart beneath the
blows of a tiny ineffective
hammer in the cracked hands
of dumb men.

Useless, he called the days,
any day at all; we wake, we
discover and we kill it and we
struggle and die sans grandeur.
But useless, perilous, unnatural
is he who cannot cling to an
ideal for more than a moment.

And perilous is he who plucks
out the pink ripe heart of a
towering man just so he may
stamp it and blend it, then roll
it out and make Play-doh ball
of veins and arteries and human
fibre as if the soul of a man were
a mere trifle.

Cristina Alden
15 March, 2007
8:31 AM