~Elegy for Glory~


I

How is purchased this glory of which bards sing
bourne on backs of mannish mules?
And how it slips through sands of
time, hedges of fame
to wash only the feet of some men
more noble by repute alone.


II

What of men, proud and brave,
accompanied through
dark alleyways of history
now but with death;
Whose backs sprawled as a
dung-heap
made carpet for great Achilles' Heels;
Whose deaths, not ordinary
nor peaceful, nor passive
but garrish, but brave
are but nothing now.


III

Their deaths I sing;
I lend them a fool's glory!
For they, unblessed by man or god
or fortune,
They stood as proud as pillars (but
regarded as grain)
before the fired faces of heros.
Unwashed by holy rivers,
their flameless eyes unhallowed,
shineless faces ugly, brows like ox-yokes,
Raised their lowly swords against
those we are told are
Mighty Men.
No mystic amulaet blazed upon their breasts,
frames unarmored by fame;
Died not by heel-pokes
nor by deceptious maidens
Nay!
Riven, their flesh, as cattle meat and
cast asided for more.
Virgin throats spread vulgar-wide
taken for a hero's soul-harem.


IV

I sing for they
who staked it all, knowing
(in their minds, so simple)
Immortality would scorn their corpses, and
Fame pass over their bones;
contemptuous of eye,
careful of foot,
eager to make more their company.
Oh! They, who threw life, with such tearful abandon,
to tributaries of Styx and
drowned their fates in Archeron;
Offering their names like supple calves,
Glorified those who pilfered immortality.

Štucker beck
2004