PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

1.  (The Day After)

I did not want her as mere property.
Therefore, after she posed, I set her free.
But now a messenger has come to me
to say---Young Snaggle-Tooth, our Emperor,
has moved against the Christians, and that her
scorched body now lies in a common grave.
Because they thought that she was still a slave
(she did not claim her freedom as a right),
they tarred and burned her on a post, last night,
with others---torches lighting Nero's feast.
(No wonder that her brethren called him . . . Beast.)
That is as much for now as I have pieced
together from the words that runner said.
Charisma---how it stabs my soul---is dead.

2.  (A Week After)

This box contains preliminary sketches
I drew of her, to aid imagination;
and every word of our sole conversation
(but nothing there to tittilate Rome's "letches")
is safe upon a triply copied scroll
that I composed, just now, to ease my sorrow.
Yes, I know, well, how much my sculpture fetches;
and one of her would be more beautiful
than any that has formed beneath my hand.
But I will not set chisel to command
this block, today, nor will I try tomorrow,
or any day thereafter.  Understand:
what I have left of her, this precious part,
cannot be made more whole, despite my art.

3.  (A Month After)

I say to all---friend, patron, servant, crony:
receive this as my final testimony.
You see only a hulking piece of stone
unused, its possibilities unknown.
But I will keep it as a firm reminder
that, not here but in Heaven, I will find her
more beautiful than what these lines can tell,
more wonderful than any poetry
describes her.  And you have concluded well:
the faith she died for has converted me.
Salvation is a fact, and not mere story.
Although I look, now, as in darkened glass,
Christ's Kingdom comes (once came, it will not pass),
and there she lives, in Him, in fullest glory.