Castle and Crow
Some merry few within the walls
found time to spare
for dance and song,
for decadent food and idle chatter,
but beyond, a rueful scene befalls
the market square.
The squawking throng,
the winged brood, grows ever fatter
on the flesh of innocence
and friendliness.
This way begun,
no further discourse could be saved.
To such moral pestilence,
even Westernesse,
where honor won,
was lost beneath the writhing waves.
Upon all peaceful places,
hatred's thought
is darkly bent.
One eye of madness, one of love,
is set in all these precious faces.
Delicate, fraught,
but never wrent
from purpose. Within, not above.
On one night, I'm in the castle.
The very next,
I'm among the crows.
From mirth into cacophony,
I lose myself in change. Peace, a hassle
to maintain. Perplexed.
Who of us knows
when clamor turns to symphony?
Where is it written? Where's the line?
Does one exist?
I hope to find
what brings us to the brink of violence,
cut it out. This mind of mine
cracks like a wrist
arthritic: resigned,
on repeat, just to break the silence.
My daily grind is as a gear
inside a clock
which tells no time.
Its glass facade conceals bleak odds
and ends, rusted with fear,
rigid with shock.
Tragedies are a dime
a dozen, as if whatever gods
there are have given up. But
with a pep talk,
caffeine, and vitamin
B12, anything is possible.
At the floor of an ancient rut,
where I often walk,
however deep in,
the climb's forever plausible.
If life's a party that never ends,
the looming lateness
of the hour
goes unnoticed by the laughing guests.
A dose of hardship often tends
to call to greatness
latent power
to resist. The hanging balance tests
us all, in time. I'm more certain
now than ever,
having tasted light,
that darkness leaks from us like vapor,
if allowed. It forms a curtain
which would sever
sight from wrong and right.
This obfuscation, many taper
to a sinister, lethal edge
with which to carve
a heedless course.
But thinner than thin is nothingness.
That's how you pierce the veil: pledge
to care, to starve
such predators with remorse
instead of anger. Faced with tenderness
unyielding, conflict and its lovers may
just freeze, may fall
into stillness, pried
from prideful pursuit of war. If you ask
me where I'd like to stand, I'll say
"With you, against all
things which might divide
us." In the common ground, and sun, I'd bask.
But even pacifism takes a fight
in this day and age,
wherein the size
of your tribe is a sign of your virtue.
I say subscription murders insight,
ideology's a cage.
No matter what lies
inside your head, my heart would hate to hurt you.
About the Creator
Jacob Sherman
The desire to read, and perhaps to write, should be cultivated and nurtured with care throughout every stage of life. For my part I will inject what strangeness and truth that I can into our written history. Expect no constants but honesty.
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