Ebb Tide (a love poem at Cape Sagres)
Whatever new seas
we may challenge now
from this sure anchorage,
we know:
There’ll be no looking back
to land’s end where
the comfort fires enthrall,
but, breasting forth
the green surge, out
to catch
whatever current, wind or tide;
adventuring the deep unknown
the last full measure of our days,
nor ever look to harbour down
whatever storms may come.
Toledo Steel
Come to my blade, Mohammed’s slave;
Come close with me and tempered steel.
The reconquista will be soon complete
so we have purged your evil kind
from our Iberia’s Christian soil
and made it safe once more for priest
and pious folk
and inquisition fires.
Scatter, Indigene; howl
in the gust of our guns
and feel our blades at your necks.
Your Inca god-king we incarcerate
and you, confused,
who might have crushed us,
fall in disarray
as leaves before the weaponry
we wield.
Step forward, adversary,
front to front, cross arms.
We’ll settle this affair d’honneur
by trembling daybreak
and affronted lover’s sight,
who will bestow from lips
so lightly now she licks
the affirmation of her trust
in blood and ritual and steel.
Ho Torro.
come!
One stumbling charge again
your buckling knees endure,
so I might place this blade
for you to run upon,
before the adulation
of this stinking mob
wash all our sins away.