Madman on a Raft

If I see her face amid your pain
Beneath a wreath of serpents
It is because her love is dead to me
The arrow of love has splintered
A thousand barbs hooked my heart within
And each a blooded poisoned thorn
As I have cut my own flesh are you risen
from your vaporific wake...

Whence Uriel draped in borrowed flesh
The wounds of moonlight piercing his
Cobweb form fire within fire his eyes
Swollen orbs which have turned life to stone
He has you dragged away by the wilderness
Of your hair underground to the place
where stars are imprisoned
And brighter than any body in all the heavens
Because these are the stars that
Once were angels...

My despair once shook the earth
And every tear that fell could melt stone
And my blood did draw you to a new flesh
If I have carved her features into your form
Making whips of your black hair
stained your feet to the cloth
That has born saviours...

And yet you still cleave ere to Eden
Know that there is a valley
My heart must enfold
Wherein a stream must ever course
Which flows ere to Eden
Thereon floats a raft
And there standing you
And I at your feet
As I was time on time ago
When you and I were young...

 

(An homage to James Clarence Mangan 1803-1849)
(2000 - revisited 2009)