My Father’s Heart

I am afraid of my father’s heart

not of the part that marched with King

or empathized with any underling

not of the part that breathed

magic through flutes

or the parts often sullen or mute

nor the wounds, the Sisyphean scars

Or the less strident, quotidian wars --

But of the flesh-and-blood thing

the vessel and vein

the ubiquitous fugue

of ambushing pain

The arduous thrum of

an imperfect drum

that fervently clanged,

both boisterous and dumb

The quiver and quake

of a thing over-laden

the chaotic choke

of machine ill-made;

The tempestuous gallop

Cesuras and starts

The manifold blips and blops

on the charts

the canonic flail

of a caged-crazed dove

the racing and reeling

like a young man in love! -

the lurch of a lung

avaricious for air

like some downed Icarus

In his lachrymose lair...

Because I suffer too

this dread behest

and long to end

the grim arabesque --

The dreadful beast

that ferociously leapt,

makes dear the dark coda,

the Cadmean rest.

Copyright Julianza Shavin 09/06