Shadowplay

Shadowplay

This dark horse,
pulling me with chaotic power,
unseen purpose, it lights a fire,
and in those flames consumes the certainty,
the sanctity of reason.
With foaming mouth, and broken halter,
this unbridled beast,
bucks the reigns,
spits the bit,
until in frantic seizure,
it rips the fleshy hands,
and soils the bloodied mitt.

A dangerous embrace,
no distant than the crawling of my skin,
the echo of the screams within,
bleeding down the walls,
erected to withhold its might,
yet, this frantic race,
upon the ominous dark paths of night,
is my turning away,
and in that flaming vision,
all i have blinkered,
all i have forestalled,
feeds the full power of its yearning,
until unyoked it consumes me in its burning.

To know in an instant,
the wild equine twin,
the snap in the tightening reins,
the temper of its wanton virtue,
the fulcrum of the shadows within,
heaving against his ghosted brother,
in flighted desperation from 'the other'.

Screaming along this cliff faced ledge,
this twined monstrosity,
A driven chariot of speed,
pulls me ever onward,
beyond my willful need,
fighting against its primal verve,
Courage!, to steel my nerve,
or, in letting go,
see this carriage so long designed
tumble heedlessly into the precipice,
scream into the rocks below.
Whoa!... slow!,
slow, white cousin,
guide your wild companion,
calm his raging sea,
with all the might of your will and certainty.
Show him the course of your way,
and let not his wild aspirations deter you,
harness that wild power,
that two may guide us past this tempests hour,
across this rocky path,
and in the perigee of that moonlit night,
wild and fraught, full of windswept howls,
the lightning screams of thunderous hooves;
pass beyond this ledge of personal treachery.

To find the calm of that open road once more,
the sure lit illumination of a wiser Sun,
and in that frightening breach, that endless reach,
to know that no soul comes by the light,
but through the shadowplay of its own feral night.

 © Richard Michael Parker 2011