The Epic Poem [home] [contents] [comments] [discussion] [shop]
       A Verse Narrative by Michael E. Mautner


54



    Clark's job is rough on the brow.
    An accountant's eyes move straight
    up and down the rows in the books
    the way in chess the rooks
    mount the queen's defense.  Too late.
    Had Clark a queen, she'd be in check.
    This rook has slept, has dozed
    on the ledger.  Will he keep
    his rendezvous tonight
    with Lana?  Hedge your bets.
    To the head of the hero now:

          WAKING FROM THE DREAM

                Brood on the blood
                on the arrows in your quill!
                (So close, yet so far apart.)
                Puss of crushed petals
                on the daffodils,
                spears from your eyes
                cut out her heart...

          ... Ow!  With a start awoken,
          feeling like I've broken
          out of a long fall.
          That dream again -- not since Pa died --
          but a different one.  Not Lana.  Not red,
          but... Black hair.  Whose?
          Whose face intrudes?  Who dares?

          Sweating again -- stopped
          with the dream's debut -- and,
          that smell.  Me?  My breath?
          No.  Not me, not here.  The smell of death
          from without, flame and oil
          and visions of Hell.
          Need to go, have to care.
          Dream's truth time will tell,
          if I dare inquire.  I will, but first
          it's time to quench that fire's thirst.

    See how the hero swiftly goes,
    how he doesn't miss a beat?
    See the swift hero, see him go
    quick to an inferno's heat.



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