Sestina I

Stirring to rings the black well of our rage We twitch the elusive scar of our old wound That gushed with fresh blood on the barren mountain Where stumbling we fell (not delicately torn On thorns of rose, but boulders of defeat, And overwhelmed knew perfect our despair.

We who across the desert of despair Have shouted till lungs bled our impotent rage And heard unheeded echoes of defeat Fall deadly back, have learned the sorest wound Is not the one time's unicorn has torn With golden horn on the peak of a pine mountain,

But one we took when, mid way up the mountain Grey scarped and cold of solitude, despair Like a blind, giant Mars we faced, saw torn Our hope and fed the bonfire of our rage, And took spreadeagle pinned our shameful wound And suffered on black stones complete defeat.

Always in memory of black defeat We tremble at the base of any mountain Fearing to take in shame our second wound, Fearing to see blind goggle eyed despair Mock the worn dance of our exhausting rage While for the second time our flesh is torn.

O from our guts the silent scream is torn, Who, crippled by Promethean defeat, Have still to smother flutterings of rage And turn again to climb a sheerer mountain Bearing a heavier burden (where despair Conquered before): the fear of sharper wound.

Always our nightmare is the shame of wound And pain. Against our will the dream is torn Each time the mind, over worn lines despair Told once forever, stutters its own defeat To empty darkened halls. Always the mountain Looms to be climbed again, in spite of rage.

O the sure end of rage is the rock torn Eternal wound on our eternal mountain And cold defeat alone and drowned despair.