(THE BLOODSTONE)
There is a Stone within my side as great as all Golgotha
A Rock of Ages, and of eons lived in exile from myself
Lithos, peltast, it assails me still
Gravestone, great rounded block that seals away my inner tomb
It lingers on within me, pangs me by means no other men may see
Milestone of all my worst misdeeds, burden of all the Good I never wrought
Wet Whetstone of my Secret Soul, grinding boulder of Sisyphus alone
Pillar of what I might have been, monument of nothing yet
Marbled within me, of form uncut
Statued still in long repose, no Master but myself at Work
And I inactive at my task,
A stone weighs within me, harder than my coldest heart
Frozen neath the whitest moon whose surface is a crystal shard
So like the flint that pierces me,
Who shall cut this bloody gem from me?
The one that heavies out my heart, and feasts my flesh as if alive
By mass of what is lost to me, by bile to gall me, stone all calcified
Of blood a stupor, dried and vain, my veins collapsed to chiseled dust
Does circulate to fix itself upon the stone that grows and harries hard in me
To hammer I should go at it, to daily ring my utmost blows,
To crack, and score, and sure reduce this thing that parasites my Inmost Man,
To split that stone of bone, sepulcher of graven lots, expose its marrow soft and withered
Grind it down as it does me and carve that rock to fractured gravel
Sledge and batter, pummel it, yet it remains and bides like bronze
Fresh cast and hardened long in unsung seas
What if I surgeoned it by razor, spliced the flesh that harbors it, and then reached in to grasp it, slick as slime, yet hard as woe?
What if I but excised this tumor all of stone and pulled it from my bleeding self? I would and yet I know it has grown vessels, arteries to feed itself, all made of me for I have fed it even though I never wished, and thus it roots there where it grows, nested, certain of its place, unruined by my surgeries,
So there malingers still deep within me the minerals of my own misdeeds, an unchipped gem acursed of undone Goods, uncaring hard, all solid sharp, it weighs there still in pain and longing, dis-ease encased like pearls envested,
uncured by nothing until I Act…
Wyrdwend 