printable version PDF version

Sentinel
by manu Friday, Aug 10 2018, 10:12am
international / poetry / post

waves break like the prancing
steeds of conquistadors tho
riderless on this 100 mile beach;
thudding and crashing, destroying
themselves in the process but sliding
back out to sea to rise again and
again

armour rusting i hear it from the mouths
of dead, murdered pre-Columbian civilisations,
the hunted, for legendary and promised gold
for the armoured conquistadors and the empire

the rhythmic thuds of hooves on the sand
the trot before the charge for gold, women
and blood -- the lust first for red blood,
not the yellow gold of the sun

the sound ebbs with the tide,
leaving a crimson, bleeding sunset
the yellow sun also bleeds red when it dies,
the connection between gold and blood

wherever and whenever it is pursued blood inevitably
flows, gold does not hide the cost from itself
or hide from the rusting armour of conquistadors

today star-spangled invaders mass murder
for black gold but the rivers of blood remain red,
rusted armour does not speak loudly

night passes and dawn breaks slowly changing hue
until it locates crimson before the yellow sun rises
then fades again into night

the ghost of an original walks slowly along the 100 mile beach
spear, woomera and boomerang in hand,
blacker than night tho the moon offers a silhouette
he neither rushes nor delays, steady are his steps,
turning occasionally as a good sentinel should
seeing all in his dreamtime but not me tho i see his dreaming,
killed on this beach a millennia ago for his precious shells
by his own kind

whenever something becomes precious
blood is spilled, tho precious objects change with each age;
one consistency remains, it plagues all men of all ages,
the rivers of blood flow over an illusion

i enter the sentinel’s dreaming, he sees me without my armour
and sword and continues walking -- tho no-where here --
for commodities of no real value to men but to empires

i follow his footprints now visible in his dreaming