Truly, the lion leaves the desert and erases his pawprints with his tail.
                    —Saint Paul of Tamma¹

          i.

                    A wound withdrew its evidence
                    of sentiment, detached itself
                    from illusions of relevance
                    ran from convenient confusion,
                    founded a movement bands have since
                    proven true, sounded trumpets deaf
                    men opened their ears to consume, bled when
                    closing, though the world heard no ambition

                    when its hordes tried to move through sands
                    a consequence of sound silence stitched in.

The destruction that brings an eagle from heaven is better than mercy.
                    —Jeffers²

          ii.

                    Abandoning its chorus, winds
                    forego forgiveness to suggest
                    an opus whose swift performance
                    of violence echoes flashes
                    of deaths egos undergo, ends
                    without an intermezzo left
                    hands clap to, the aching pause, knowing when
                    not to applaud, what example more than

                    halves the battle, splitting the Self
                    into movements only saints can handle.

The ant’s a centaur in his dragon world.
                    —Pound³

          iii.

                    Lifting from shattered perceptions
                    illusions, sifting through damages
                    for collateral truths blind chance
                    drops to earth, scorched fingers war in
                    formation against existence,
                    pulling apart all of its threads,
                    opening to nude exposure what thin
                    shreds of being this civilization’s

                    noise hides from hearts, fruit that ripens
                    in one’s veins before climbing vines minds bend.

Clearly he was of the ‘bohemian type’.
                    —Dudek⁴

          iv.

                    Consumed by choice, he chose a fence
                    and not a wall, which offended
                    all the more hell’s own ferrymen,
                    those conductors luring souls with
                    solos promising innocence,
                    wealth, and eternal youth—riches
                    no one else but fools would let imprison
                    or possess them, those things our hero in

                    his bones’ flight to the desert shed,
                    burdens he threw out before they broke him.

__________
¹Saint Paul of Tamma, “On the Cell”, in “Part Two: Translations: [Chapter] 5. Saint Paul of Tamma and the Life of the Cell” of Words to Live By: Journeys in Ancient and Modern Egyptian Monasticism by Tim Vivian: With the Assistance of Apostolos N. Athanassakis, Maged S. A. Mikhail and Birger A. Pearson, published at Kalamazoo, Michigan by Cistercian Publications in 2005; page 178.
²Robinson Jeffers, “Fire on the Hills”, [Stanza 1, Line 14], in Poetry of Our Time: An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Poetry: Including Modern Canadian Poetry: Edited by Louis Dudek, published at Toronto by The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited in 1966; page 167.
³Ezra Pound, “‘What thou lovest well remains…’ (From Canto LXXXI)”, [Stanza 2, Line 10], in Poetry of Our Time: An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Poetry: Including Modern Canadian Poetry: Edited by Louis Dudek, published at Toronto by The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited in 1966; page 81.
⁴Louis Dudek, “Ezra Pound (1885–     )”, in Poetry of Our Time: An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Poetry: Including Modern Canadian Poetry: Edited by Louis Dudek, published at Toronto by The Macmillan Company of Canada Limited in 1966; page 73.