Beginning a New Poem

After an institute class about the Beast and the Dragon in the Revelation of John, I started writing a poem, which currently consists of the following. Oh, and please note that the lines in the large font indicate new sections. Each of these is actually just one stanza, most of which are sonnet-like with 14 lines.

I

Ah yes, very well then
All you ruddy mice and men,
Throw your face down in the mud and grovel on your knees
Sing with sullen exultation, for you worship the Beast!

Oh, truly noble, truly wise,
Is the one with seven eyes.
Brilliant plan to join his team,
He whose crown so dully gleams.

His monsters walk beside their Lord,
Godhead to the unwitting horde.
He heals the sick, the dead he revives.
Oh woe unto all who against him do strive.

Rising from the earth you show your joyful eyes.
Upon your hand a red ring sits;
For your loyalty, you’ve won a prize!
You get ahead when you use those wits.

II

Too late they’d slept, those doers of good
For hour th’eleventh must follow hour the tenth.
I’d have ta’en from their eyes that veil, that hood,
If I’d known what those many signs meant.

But they bowed before him and reached forth their hands
To be branded with his mark.
They pilgrimaged from far-flung lands
And sensed not th’encircling dark.

We saw the signs, we should have known
The slide to evil had subtly begun.
We, fools, worshiped things that one could own!
So, cunningly, our minds were won.

And now I must tell this tale of woe
Of blindness, and men and their mettle,
And of some small few – with every day more –
Who learned the truth and gave the Beast battle.

III

On plantation field, a black indigenous man
Wiped from brow dust-begrimed sweat.
He had a look of concern and a tremor in his hand
For a stranger whom he had just met,

Who, with black assault rifle was no trabajador
And whose grisly machete chopped no banana stems.
He’d smiled a sickly smile, spat his chew on the floor
Of the shed, and thus frightened our friend.

This good man (whose name, by the way, was Hernán)
Mumbled something, then shuffled away.
If Hernán could have seen the fiend’s face once he’d gone
He’d have panicked, but now not till some other day.

So Hernán, quite startled by the man he’d just met,
Went back to work, but mark you, he didn’t forget.

IV

A man’s face was seen through window pane
Wrought by fury, none would him deter
From a solemn life of lonely pain
Wanting things as they once were.

As rain spattered glass, his eyes were bleak.
His hair stayed still while outside wind howled,
Though a storm within him brewed beneath
His looks. He sighed, then blinked, and in his soul bowed.

“Alone, oh God, closed in on myself,
No one knows my heart, my struggle, my hurt.
I’d do so much more, if released from this hell.”
So by this bargain he staked all his worth

To live to do good – well, at least to try –
When through window, on street, he saw a lady walk by.

V

From his basement room, Simon – yes, that’s his name –
With one eye to Heaven climbed stairs to the door.
Not finding her there, he stepped into the rain,
His hair flattened by raindrops that fell by the score.

To right, an old man with umbrella above.
To left, there she was! striding quick against wind.
Simon followed, intrigued, strangely smitten with . . . love?
He ran up and tapped her. She turned, and he grinned.

“Dear lady, I can’t help but notice with pity
That with no umbrella, you’re soaked through and through.
I happen to carry a large one right here with me.
Please grant me the pleasure of accompanying you.”

Love began to grow in him as they – very dry – talked.
Pausing, then laughing, God-blesséd they walked.

What do you think? I wonder how it transfers from my imagination to yours. If you’re thinking that none of these sections have anything to do with each other, well… they will once it’s done. Later!