Through wafting banks of dewy introverted hues,
swords unsheathed in peals shaking
the sunrise, slow to wake
on bed of fading stars, microcosm of
love and hate echoing triumphantly
over mountain, black river, pleins d�or et jungles noir,
in the black and white political world,
such old-world valiance as swords unsheathed
appear to offer promise of deliverance
back to the curmudgeonly Holy lands
before railing once against inevitability
and suffocating,
slowly and inexorably,
cast into the ghostly mire of backlit halos
and mercurial disparity
crossing light and dark, passing life and death
thrown headlong into snarling backwaters,
the wicked messenger of self-importance
folding his hands in Lucheses� prayer.
(c) 2002 troubled phantom publishing