The Bowman

I look down from a broken hillside,

Crookedly on the claws and nubs of root and stone,

Head bowed, back to the lofty summit I’ll never reach.

The battle wanes, or is it just starting out in earnest?

Time ebbs or flows

Like the gruesome fragments of a dream,

Hurling themselves against themselves,

Like the infernal crash of arms,

The eternal entanglement of mankind against mankind.

Somewhere the mural screams. 

 

Am I, specifically, all out?

Then, reaching to my quiver

I find yet one more shaft

To put to bended bow.

I’m not spent, not yet.

These twitching hands are tired

But the gripping fingers

Throb with blood not yet spilt.

 

Not yet can I sigh the pacifists sigh

Nor can I aim my arrows straight up into the sky.

Reviews

[.]

:: it's a very tough place to be in... you make me wonder about how important or unimportant it is to be a pacifist... thank you for infecting me with a brand new existential dilemma... it's the kind of food for thought that i need...

[Valentine]

Wow, an expanded idea that worked. I could picture the ancient bowman. Keep your imagination going. God Bless Valentine