Paul Swaine
With the ocean beset on your arrival,
You have sunken far below its depths.
It has claimed too many, drowned, slain, enraptured.
With three figures tense, for you’re all well met.
This Iron-clad, the gilded mare
You feel yourself give in and the atoms cheer at your demise.
The chains have held, only to hear
A bleak glimpse, as they fade into and out of this reality, nightmare.
Its time. No more confronting your vulnerabilities.
The three you see before you, one titan to your left, the hollowed eyes to your right, dripping with oil and fire to the touch.
And the void, Virgil is waiting bereft.
The steel in your hand imbued, cries for itself:
“You have given more, much more. Than this foul swamp ripe and lust with anger.
To decide who will take you, your fate, take your chance. To see you as nothing, brings pain and lost hope to this sanctum that I bare. I cannot leave you in this wretched state, your mortal glass is worth a thousand utterings of Soteria, of salvation, of ever-lasting courage. I beset you, look upon the golden scape of roses, of treasure and make sure to see yourself. In this daylight. In this moonlight, you are an ever-guiding star of no depletion, only elation.
This is the stasis. The only truth you’ll ever need. Those that all pass between these cinders, Tried or Trifle. But you will not fall. Let these fires be your weapon, your light, your maw at which the open mouth gazes and tell them ‘Get Out! Get Out of Here! You are nothing!’, with these, these leviathans in your way. I grant you, you may lay waste.”
And as the sword’s cry turns to roar,
Your wounds have healed through marvel of invention.
The steel is now yours, waging against the High Gods. The crowd can see this, they have mustered support from bare bones and lost veins. As you gain your legs to kneel, With one hand on hilt and the other beckons on.
You are standing. Commanding more, entrenched in your aura.
The air as fresh as it was the night before. The three stand in your way.
Only to find who you are. They know, once you’ve come this far.
To challenge, they only revel in defeat; but you dare not raise your sword.
Only to pass through. To never see them again as you move on.
As you feel the black rain hit your skin, this armor has shifted into your mortal being.
And in it you will find. A sacred teaching, that you are indispensable, you are unmatched and forever immortal.
This is your time, this is your land.
And whatever shall arrive, I shall be there.
Beside you…
Maynooth Creative Writing Society 