Santiago De Compostela

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.