Ashes, Ashes - b.armstrong

[Larry Robinson]

Ashes, Ashes     
All Fall Down                                     

from 1347-1353   
The Black Plague, 
(Yersinia pestis), claimed one third of the population of Europe.

   Born in a time of darkness,                                       
   she’s laid low in her cedar cradle.
   Buboes flare at pit and groin as               
   on her cheeks, false roses bloom.  
   A parching fever carries her
   beyond her mother’s grace
   even before the dance
   of rattling bones begins.

       And who’s to blame?
             an aggravated God,   
             the sinner, self-proclaimed, 
             flaying his flesh with
             with cat-o’-nine tails,
             the sailors dragging pestilence
             ashore in duffel bags,
             the ghetto of immigrants
             rounded up like banished 
             books and burned to ashes?
             When no one’s left
             to oversee the barricades,
             nor any left to dig the graves,
             who will be left to blame? 
 
   Blame the Basilisk,
   denizen of the dark ages, 
   dealer of death and ruination
   He wears the thorn-face of a rooster, 
   strapping thighs of dragon,
   the whip tail of a tortured serpent.
   A foul miasma is his breath;
   a single drop of blood is dose
   enough to poison every well.
   Every field he passes is a 
   withering reminder of his
   dreadful domination.
                
               You dare not
               Dare Not
               look into the
               mirrors of his eyes.
               The sight of your reflection
               will strike you to the ground.            

	- b.armstrong
                                                  
                                            
   
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