I Loved You For It
“I Loved You for It” ( a benediction)
I.
Don't tell me it was not my place!
What to shun, what to embrace
As an age ends, multitudes around you
Are robed in garments of peace
But I see the earth taken to whirlwinds of dust upon your departure
To sun-bathed mountain ranges of the west--
Purple and red in the evening suns
You go to seek your reflection
In the Blood of Christ Stream
And paint your face for war!
Usurper
Who owns the cattle of a thousand hills--
It's obvious to whomever you encounter
That you are entitled
To lord over the lands
They wish to crucify you
So you carry always
Three nails in your pocket
I cannot banish your need to bleed
But I would carry your cross
And stagger under its weight
II.
Never the desperate frantic
Struggling to escape a deadly web--
You are a spinner extraordinaire
Unashamed of your savagery,
You wait for moonlight to ferry you to madness
Where you run naked in the forests of your mind
And bless your taste for blood
Alexander by rite,by might of your word
Standing head and shoulders above your predecessors--your contemporaries
(How they despise you for it;
How we've laughed at them!)
Your nature is not to wait for stars to align
And reveal your destiny: You know it; you will seize it.
Ordained you are to abide in great halls
Of worlds now afloat and worlds yet to come
To be carved into the stone heart of history
Of mice
And of men
III.
Yet I fear my devotion does not further your cause
Nor support your motto:
“Defy, contradict, self-destruct”
Go now, do your bidding!
For truly, you never did mine
I can only count the cost--
Knowing I was not your first nor your last
(But on my oath, your truest convert)
This spirit whose eyes
Read the writing on your wall
And never looked away
Was not anointed your Hephastion
But in the last hours of our days
Branded your enemy,
Who perished when you looked away
My little, persisting deaths
Grew your inspiration
As the dead feed the roses
And I loved you for it
(from Mythos)
May 29, 2011
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