The Horse's Fountain

I have drunk from that spring on
Helicon, at a time unknown,
my lips touched it
before I was born and it has

taken a lifetime to identify
its strange taste that
bore me into places I
did not want to go

yet had no choice - in this
shallow dayglo modern world
being an ancient drinker
from an ancient stream

is no comfortable thing - it
sets one apart, beneath, above,
below, beside everyone else
not with them in the same

furrow - an uncomfortable thing
the liquid flow, the words
that come streaming from
places so dark and deep so

negative with capability no-one
would speak to me if they
could see what
I know …

they would weep with pity
had they seen where
I have been, and survived,
the trials that issue

from that dark water spilling
between rock and fern, the siren
song in my ear, always
driving a lonely road,

mad, wounded gorgon,
navigating city and time
not one with the moment
misunderstanding the tongue

moving along, carried by the
forceful stream, a dream
alive and breathing, the hooves
sound near but out of reach

the sparks struck like
hammer and anvil, steel on steel -
bones are hard enough to bear
destiny pre-drawn, legacy down

far down beneath the earth -
those I will follow, unsung
warrior of the dark with the
shining s-word.  Was here.

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