The Millennial Pedestrian

The Power of Love

Across the Bosphorus on Asia’s shore
the far horizon hides the hinterlands
whence one tectonic wave upon another
rolled upon Byzantium.
In loving human combers on they came
consumed with longing
for the shining goddess of the West,
gauzy in the setting sun.

Unlettered tribesmen taught themselves
to think of beauty
for the sake of winning Beauty over.
But when at last the rape was done
the lovelorn Ottoman had won a corpse.

In the morning, standing in the stench of
burning churches, the tribesman looked again
at his beloved. In her ruin smoldered red the
flame he sought and all around him rose in stinking plumes
the promise of a beauty greater still,
devoted now to Allah and his prophet.
With love he breathed new life
into the lifeless body, with love he raised her up
upon her promontory, with love
he gazed at green Europa.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 18th, 2007.
It's part of the New Poems category.
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