Burn or be burned

On the rack, the self-same concentrate of arrow-thoughts
and prayers and dark-eyed passion, the same petualance as before;
Another turbulent sowing, yet why should the harvest be any different tonight?
As if a child, half-dressed and illiterate, should be made a prophet,
as if mouse-brown eyebrows launched Helen's armada.
milk it dry, but don't be ridiculous. Cross the sea or stay.

but what shall I do?
"burn or be burned but she must have" - benet wrote that
because when something's not easy, it must be right. give me
a creed, a song, a vinegar litany pressed through swollen lips
and out into this empty silence;
pledge or gentle promise, i don't care, but let it last, and
matter so that I may begin to know the stammering,
low and human voices
that flicker on the edges. To talk with them I need
to find the proper resonance, to barter, I must grasp their same values -
will the crimson glory of autumn do it, or the fine fire in a woman's eye? Are Nature and Love
going to persecute this spreading hollowness?
Darkness...a faint cold outline...like walking trees,
oh it's no use.
Tuesday again, and its all for cold, dark and aloneness - "Aloneness" which is good says a small little puritan voice inside,
but hopefullness has gone the way of Merry England and poor, pretty Jack.
the blood has been proved,
the prophet has been named,
and the wandering goes on
among stars that have a different birth
but the same birth-day.