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Welcome ! | Home · FAQ · Topics · Web Links · Your Account · Submit Poetry · Top 30 · OldSite Link | 02-June 22:49:55 AEST | ||
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Array
(
[sid] => 35457
[catid] => 1
[aid] => mick
[title] => The Canon-Finale
[time] => 2004-02-18 19:44:05
[hometext] => Last part of a three part poem for my Romantic Experience course.
[bodytext] => I am the gatekeeper I am he who dares to withhold knowledge From man Knowledge of peace Knowledge of understanding Knowledge of purpose Knowledge of nature The knowledge that they really Know no more than the most minute creature And are distinguished only by the fact That they are able to use it But I look in sorrow upon The manner in which it is applied When the armies of men Are at each other’s throats Ripping and clawing All in vain Striving to gain things That they will only lose When they die For nothing is constant Nothing is permanent Everything is transient Nothing remains But for the folly of man Which blankets the earth like morning fog And further clouds his judgment. And their dead line up at the gates of heaven Victims of the sins of their superiors Of their own ambition Of their own nature An endless line Stretching on towards oblivion While the sun sets Everything is the same in its eyes As the smallest pebble is awash in the Currents of the ocean, surrounded by water So is the earth awash in the abyss of space Surrounded by light That somehow fails to reach the hearts of men To disperse the corruption And the hatred And the malice And the cruelty And somehow its fire Intense beyond all imagination Fails to cleanse the earth upon which it falls Of all things unfit to be And yet it seems to be satisfied For each night It ends its vigil And descends from its celestial post And leaves some part of the earth Cold and dark While the moon, its indentured servant Ordered forever to reflect The light of her master A soft glow upon the children of the world As they sleep As their fathers shoulder their rifle And move through the night As ghosts upon some eerie vision To enact each other’s death As cattle to the slaughter They are silent Their instruments Ring out dirges The drummer boys Play their own funeral march The artillerymen dig their own graves With shell after shell The chaplain gives last rights to Man after man While his own soul dies With hatred not love Men lust for riches, not love Their hearts are broken by steel Not by romances And they die of lead, not of old age Fields of battle burn The seamless ranks Crucify themselves on the blades of the other As my tears fall down like rain And I wonder why I rested on the seventh day For I am God and I fear That I have failed. [comments] => 1 [counter] => 159 [topic] => 43 [informant] => scott [notes] => [ihome] => 0 [alanguage] => english [acomm] => 0 [haspoll] => 0 [pollID] => 0 [score] => 5 [ratings] => 1 [editpoem] => 1 [associated] => [topicname] => oops )
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