The Celtic Knot


Yesterday you resurrected ancient wraiths

Of Celtic mist and blue shadows of the forest.

Howling barbarian hordes descended from

The forgotten regions of my ancestral memory

To wage furious assault upon the least defended

Portals of my castle keep.


The air was filled with death cries of the invader

As the strongest of my defenses crumbled

Before the irresistible force of those who do your bid.

My strength, which matches that of pale tigers

In the face of all other dangers, dropped away like rain drops

Before the fiercest of your burnished legions.


It was all to no avail and in the final clash

My heart was captured, taken prisoner, bound

In steel chains woven from the darkest strands

Of scented hair that wreaths the alabaster of your fair neck.

And like a helpless prize of warring passions forsaken

I was brought to you for judgment.


The flash of silvered metal from your lovely ears

Told me all I needed to know the outcome of that moment,

As the mobius  knot of  legend shrouded runic myth

Pronounced the silent admonitions that all who hear

Must fear and acknowledge fully as the legacy

Of infinity’s capricious, timeless whim.


There I swayed, poised above the fires of loveless hope,

Held from falling to my doom by the slenderest

Of ropes woven from that fall of darkest moonbeams

That is the crowning legacy of your regal beauty.

Defiantly, I scorned mercy then, searching your eyes

For a saving evidence of  the deeper feeling I hoped to see.


Alas, they were perfect mirrors of emptiest black space,

The void flinging back the certainty of my futile quest.

Before that final plunge into the fiery limbo of your soul,

I paused. The desolate refuge of the vanquished heart,

The undervalued, cast-off armor of this lamented battle borne,

As yet another sacrifice to that hellish Celtic knot!