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Beyond Gibeon

A Poem

By A. F. LittPublished 7 years ago 2 min read
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By Foster, William A. [from old catalog] 

It is all done now

but for the mopping up

and we now know our

fates, which we hate, hate...

disdainfully swept aside

like so many crumbs from

my last dinner plate...

It is the last new thing

and it is wrong;

Like stoney hail,

like skies unbound...

The details remain uncertain

and the unsure shape of

the sun, that bright spot in

a new, dark heaven, sears

its way towards us,

so slowly;

I'll shiver before

we all burn.

We... I... know this much,

if nothing else.

It was cold last night

but the moon was bright

and yesterday the sun

was brighter even still,

and colder even still,

hanging there too long...

Unnatural like,

it was not right...

In one place, in one damnable

place, as men

once my brothers, my kin,

died,

carved down one by one

for nothing, the day

too long and lost to nothing,

for nothing but blood and

for sacrifice

For their god, for ours,

who was killed yesterday,

though they know it not, yet.

Eaten and eliminated. Devoured.

Just like us.

Just like us.

Just like me.

The last new thing.

It is begun.

They might call it providence,

but not I. Some sort

of banquet honor but

not... ever... fate.

Not I.

Not today when, soon, I

will only know one thing...

I will tear at that heart I so hate,

if not before, during,

if not during, then even after

I die;

screaming, crying, howling-

Not I, not I.

Not I.

One last bitter toast before

this new, bitter work begins.

I'll sink in my teeth.

Yes, I'll even eat,

for such unnatural deeds,

once begun, will never be done

and this last new thing

will never be complete.

Unlike I, I'll say,

before, during, and after

this remainder of my life.

After the white morning air fades away;

under the final ablution of a blue heaven;

suffering the last kiss from a treacherous sun;

beyond the ultimate silence of the still, still sand;

in my final moment- with the last breath of

the day's final breeze curling around my feet;

Before my final tree,

I'll whisper secret

blasphemies...

I, alone, will remember peace;

I, alone, to keep the old ways,

never wrenched from my heart,

as I was wrenched from my home,

cleaved from my right,

too reduced to fight,

boiled down to nothing

but meaningless toil,

calloused labor in the service

of strange, adopted cousins,

a vengeful shadow of

my once sonorous self,

staining the stones beneath

the crushing, eternal sun;

Only then will I die,

only then and only I.

Only I.

performance poetry
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About the Creator

A. F. Litt

Photographer, writer, filmmaker, wandering lost soul...

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