Untitled, London Bellman
Picts
A tribe of Picts is fixing to cleave me,
battle armor clanging as they close in.
Tracking me over rivers and moors,
whipsawing around corners
of these halls. Through couriers
and shouts word has come down
of my treachery—slack ways,
squandered promise, my boat clinging
to shore.
And this, the sentence
for my sins. Pikes raised, they fire their gaze
before they lunge. Azure-faced grins,
sword and pickaxe, they hack through
tendon and bone. No more need
for excuses. Shriven, free, I crumble
in a heap. Crimson permission to slow drain
my time.
All mine, all mine.
_______________
Anthony Cappo