past the point of no return

[045. shackles] Point of no return

Roma, Italy.

Holy city on the peninsula, I stand alone in shackles with
gilded memoirs, cold engravings
frozen in my steeples,
bringing myself to wake before the dawn awakens
looking for my people—looking for their fix—
looking for an answer between the sheets of sky.
The holy cries of salvation hide the quiet lies.
Beneath the machinery, the horned devil sighs.
And where I stand, engulfed in crystal chains,
shadows little boys with darting eyes, and
the rag-tag of pauper lives.
Where the bell sings clear and proud
the servants’ muffled weeping.
Where the stained-glass halls tickle with light,
the darkness house the sleeping.
Strange now to think of it this way,
borne of emperors, under shield and cross.
Borne of men and buried by men,
steeled by will and iron fist, jewels gaudy at the hilt.
With memory I seek a passage,
where sickness took damned souls,
other sick, wearied, harrowed ghouls,
grasped by scalp, greasy hairs,
brought to me as trophies with deadened stares.
Past the point of right and wrong,
where morals, code, and law all run together,
in one lake of charcoaled ashes—
gleaming like the new borne babe.