Poetry

---

He comes only with a sword in hand,
Riding a horse that crosses the heavens in a stride;
His face like thunder and with a voice of lightning,
Ares, Mars, Nemesis, and Vulcan bow low their pride
To a general with all creation at his command.

Longer than the Nile is the shaft of his sword.
Its hilt laughs at the fires of the deep.
With reflected brightness to blind the most righteous man,
Any victim cries only once, thereafter his secrets to keep;
But those who survive will embrace their reward.

His stirrups could cradle a million earths—
His right foot will terrify Andromeda, his left the Magellanic,
The rumble of his dismount stratosphering the oceans,
Driving the Music of the Spheres into a frenzied panic.
On his day nowhere and nothing will furnish safe berths.

His eyes the color of loving rancor,
They scan the globe as once his adversary did.
Like his creature the albatross, he seeks only his target:
A soldier derelict of his duty, now by no leaf hid;
With a nod of his head he holds him at anchor.

The poor, beloved man, cowering without a corner,
His ragged clothing burning in the heat,
In surrender he watches the great warrior’s coming,
Assured only of his bondage’s final defeat.
At last he confesses, “I am a foreigner.”

The warrior’s sword, life unremitting it cleaves
Slashing through the man’s garments and on past the bone—
The harrowing process has finally begun.
Desecrating all he once thought sacred or his own,
His former life falls away, but for it not he grieves.

He sees with open eyes a hill not far away,
Where a man humiliated, strung-up to die
Cries, “Father, forgive them!” and then it is finished.
And the man in the valley at last can answer the why;
For Lord Sabaoth rides today.

---

PLEASE ENCOURAGE AUTHOR BELOW LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE