The Land of Dreams and Other Poems

My Woodland Grove

Sweet dew in the bracken

New fauns skitterish within.

All taut as a lute string, none slacken

As they graze in the mid-morning dim.

I come here to evade the dark,

My haunting work and mind.

The stain of battles lasting mark

My body's hollowed rind.

My Grove , my Grove, I visit now,

Where all's at peace and still.

When place and time in turn allow,

My haven from battle's trill.

Discordant wind ploys its way

Across the forsaken expanse.

My Love, my Dread, my Lay-

The clash of lance on lance.

My comrades lay fallen, broken and dead,

Both blood and bone show stark and true.

No colors shine but crimson red

Which flows its deep and daunting hue.

My Grove , my Grove, I visit now,

Where all's at peace and still.

When place and time in turn allow,

My haven from battle's trill.

A sweeping slash, a deadly,vengeful thrust

Is a good-hearted whipping of a supple bough

The red of blood and skies and rust

Are the first color of my Grove's rainbow.

Through a column of burning flame,

a hulking brute halts and winks.

His pale blade thirsts to lame

In the midst of the burning-hair stink.

My Grove , my Grove, I visit now,

Where all's at peace and still.

When place and time in turn allow,

My haven from battle's trill.

In my Grove--my dear wish--I stalk a cub.

I lurch, and tumble with my furry "foe."

I bare no knife nor crude-carved club.

And, wistfully, ultimately, let it go.

I must fight on, fight on, forevermore.

Alas! These deaths hang 'round my blistered neck

Like a heavy stone, a sign of gore,

A sobbing, well-wrung rag of a wreck.

My Grove , my Grove, I visit now,

Where all's at peace and still.

When place and time in turn allow,

My haven from battle's trill.

The depraved dirge of dying men

Is the birdsong in my weeping soul.

The crackle of flame, over again,

Is the neighing of a newborn foal.

This the way I am, was, will ever-be,

A cold-hearted killer to my broken bones.

On bluff and canyon, plain or scree,

I trail the sound of demons deathly groans.

My Grove , my Grove, I visit now,

Where all's at peace and still.

When place and time in turn allow,

My haven from battle's trill.

I fight for my country, my love, my land,

Not any thirst for screaming death.

So many have fallen by my bloody hands,

I have reaped men's flesh and dying breath.

Release me! Draw thy blade across my throat!

Lest I kill and cannot stop the killing!

Mark me with the cross and butcher me like a goat!

I welcome you my friend, I am ever-willing.

My Grove , my Grove, I visit now,

Where all's at peace and still.

When place and time in turn allow,

My haven from battle's trill.

I thrust my sword into the welcoming dirt

And kneel before it, my second God.

Blood--not my own--drenches my mail shirt

And drips a steady rhythm on the sod.

A fiend approaches, curious and wary

It shows in the furrow of his heavy brow.

He looks prepared to flee or parry,

And almost...angry...somehow.

My Grove , my Grove, I visit now,

Where all's at peace and still.

When place and time in turn allow,

My haven from battle's trill.

He draws his axe, well worn wood and steel

And searches my eyes for hidden guile.

With an upward swing he makes the seal,

And I flash him a sighing, sorrowful smile.

With a grunt he heaves it downward,

His merciless eyes, they flash and rove.

I escape, escape, as he ploughs ever-onward

To the secret silver passage of my Woodland Grove.  

My Grove , my Grove, I visit now,

Where all's at peace and still.

When place and time in turn allow,

My haven from battle's trill.