The Burnt Angel
Following the jesus of absence,
flying on the defunct
Pegasus line,
will the angel come again
when the moon walks through pines
or under the yolk of sun
frying unbroken above, or
to the dancing floor
on white wings, where flying leaves
fire-waltz till they're dirt
and leaves no more?
Will the tongue
that was a biting worm
push deep into the shifting worlds
to eat the wide silence
last legends leave behind?
How will the hands
that broke down stone by stone
each road and arch, bricked bridge and hall
pile up that rampart
cloud-placed at last
without rafter or wall?
The icewind says nothing
in her bully brief run;
nothing to the questions
the coming dark
asks the sun.
Pegasus flies, but
Icarus in flame-halo crown
only tumbles
burning,
burning
down.
~December 2014; lightly revised May 2023
Image: Pegasus, by Wojciech Siudmak Fair use
7 comments:
Here's the power that myth and faith lost, which says to me at least that poetry is a greater fire though it burns us all. Because it burns us so. What else can "pile up that rampart / cloud-placed at last / without rafter or wall"? I'm finding there's work still to do on my past ramparts, allowing them to burn greater, than I find in new work, which seems so dry and cold. Thanks for this necessary desperate angel, Hedge.
So many ways to fall, to end and all with a doom laden inevitability matched only by the depth of our sorrow and our knowing..which I guess is compost for the quill. Lovely to read you once more.
Oh dear me. I am very very glad that I wrote and posted mine before I saw this because I would have put in an application at the local Dollar Store and thrown away my keyboard had i read this magnificence first. The language, the occasional rhyme, the mythological references, and of course your singular use of imagery all combine here to depict a particular kind of noble defeat--both personal and universal--in a way that i can only envy.
The language and imagery are beautiful in this (though “beautiful” is hardly the right word). Not to mention the rhythm, which caught me especially in the closing stanzas. I feel like I’m reading runes.
I read it again and again, and each time drew breath where flying leaves fire-waltz till they’re dirt and leaves no more. Wow (though “wow”is hardly the right word).
Shay called it right: “Magnificent.” Powerful, towering, beautiful, rich with language and image. Each line shocks us with what we did not know was possible to say, but now can only say. We fall through the lines, desperate for the way each new image first saves us, then damns us as the poem and hope burn down. How amazing are these lines: “Following the jesus of absence, / flying on the defunct / Pegasus line,” and “ The icewind says nothing
in her bully brief run;”
The biting worm-tongue is a fantastic image--love that. Your poem seems to ask me whether I want to (or can) invest the old myths with new meaning, or if I must (if I can) create new ones.
Amazing Imagery!
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