Santiago De Compostela
By
Matt McGuire
Dark obelisk setting
Sun she waits by the gates
Of morning mourning for the
Crusaders lost in dreams
Dust and djinn
Lust and barren loins
A sundered sea of sin
The right knows not the left
The helm of salvation is cleft
Legendary lives and loose tongues
Scarlet crossed white warhorses
Salt of the untilled soil
Deeds undone in quatrefoil
Hammers sing and death still stings
Sacrosanct signet ring kisses
Scimitar’s swing a deadly thing
But a guided lie never misses
Pilgrim’s poverty eschews the inns
Damn the Holy Land opium dens
Forsaken for a painted
Punta on the other side
Of eternity tears wet the
Garments on terraces facing
The cool breezes autumnal
Sands of the hourglass
Numbered just like
The hours until He comes
Nevermore to the corrida
Nevermore to the chapel
To proclaim his love for
The whores in Byzantine
Labyrinths lambent flames
Lick labium Sabbath sacrifices
An invisible Idol
Who demands the death
Of children choked
With the smoke
Of the hearth he
Rode East away from the
Setting sun into
The arms of Assyrian
Damsels the smell
Of poppies were in his
Wake from sleep to
Find a dagger thrust
Through the heart
Of innocence
The narthex of her nave is
Bleeding for the end of
Days bring him home
Kill the golden calf
Save her soul
From the stake
And the loneliness
Of a life lived
Too long in the graveyard
And a buttressed house built with
Tears and the timid bones of the
Faithful.
