IACOBOS by J.T.A. Reddy

If scattered ash make these eyes blink

What scorched sorrow would make them wet? 

Mark the gatekeeper’s blooded blade and count

Lopsided steps taken under watch; 

Guilt turns mills inside men’s minds 

But lifelong chattel makes him fall in line.

Great legless lizards blind to bit or tail

Chomp - and proselytes wait for them to talk. 

Loveless martyrs, turned suffering clockwise,

Impasse the intelligentsia -

And the guard asks them to tell the time.

This sharpened wit can cut and bleed, 

But this is not the town where I would see the deed;

This sequestered force did I let loose, 

But laws of man forbid my heart its fruits. 

To find that air could float as hearts that sink, 

Gives this writer pause; empty’s heavy, I think

And kick, as I cannot see the bottom

yet.

*

You temper these threats, Iacobos, 

But; all my debt will come, to it, and fret, 

I grasp the heel, I grasp the heel, I grasp the heel.