“…A lost horse
to carry me
to the tomb.”
~ “Hard Ride,” Dave Bonta
The teacher said, Mind the tempo of the beat—
and I started, thinking I’d heard The tempo of the beast,
which made me recall Yeats’ poem with that creature slouching
toward a famous middle eastern city to be born. Man or beast,
outcast in the dead of winter; the world in shambles, the world
a gyre with broken teeth on whose temple steps lie beasts
in their own blood. But if he slunk toward the fabled city,
toward the hour of his birth, that could only mean this beast
was its own ungainly steed, its own doula, primigravida. Who can tell
now womb from maw when terror and all manner of beastly
rapes are foisted off as amusement, cheap thrills, entertainment? The lost
and wounded limp through these deserts filled with dying bees.
Our noses to the ground, we try to keep company, our saddlebags light:
one step in front of the other, sights trained ahead, stumbling after the beat.
In response to Via Negativa: Hard Ride.