Lament For Hephaestion-The Breaking Of Babylon And The World

Greek fire
Persian temples
set ablaze
and fires quenched.
No song uttered
the tails and manes of horses
lay all about the city.

  For a moment, great Babylon is but a tomb,
a dying man.
Dying with friends and sweet Godlike lovers,
dying dreams,
and myths only young men believe.

  Babylon's heart is a man
he is broken and dying.
It is only October
but October Is july,
and the deed is done.

That wail,
that sane and insane weeping
made somehow holy,

Even the Gods have never witnessed
such weeping by a mortal,
not at Troy,
never.

 He calls out, in this, his darkest hour-
to every Hero, every God,
'Hephaestion!"
It is a prayer, a call, a demand, a plea,
one word,
a name,
''Hephaestion"!

 He quenched the holy Temple fires,
finding the most potent assassin,
is one's own broken heart.

 And men,
with their tiny arms,
with their tiny hearts,
and their tiny visions,
break but into little dust sized pieces
the scatter.

  But Babylons heart,
having grown and achieved beyond those others
with a capacity made colossus,
by a force as powerful as any other natural force,
being filled with the greatest longing of all hearts,
and thus the greatest sorrow-

 
That heart breaks harder and heavier,
breaks more woefully,
than the the death of ten thousand of those other,
smaller hearts,
all at once.

 And this heart,
Being so eager,
so vigorous,
did so vigorously die.
And the whole world was broken,
and shattered,

Truly it has never been remade.

Reviews

[Susan Beth Horvath]

WOW-yeah! I liked the title to begin with. Then you painted this abstract picture and it all became more clear by the artist's outside-the-box mental displays! Good correlations, excellent train of thought and an easy flow.

[Tricia Pattinson]

I was pulled in with every word. Wonderful and impacting imagery. Your word choice superb!

[Blake Fodor]

Thank you for this totally awesome write and I am so very impressed.

[Mary Bosworth]

this is very powerful and full of red hot emotions. good job

[Mary C]

The imagery and detail in this piece are beautiful. Very nice work here.

[Malister Mikey]

I really enjoyed this one because it mentions greek stuff and as someone who used to study the gods and the cities I always found them interesting.

[Delmar Cooper]

This was well done. I think a little more knowledge of history and legend, leaders and lovers would have enhanced my appreciation of this work. I won't use ignorance as an excuse, but will note that I may not be the only ignorant reader you will ever encounter.

[Jenney Clark]

A story within a poem. I liked it for two reasons.
1.The pure beauty of words strung together, with emotion and depth, flowing and falling, telling a tale. . 2. It dances to a different beat... that of a legend, an epic story...
Therefore I can say this without sounding cliched .... this is epic!!!!!

[Anne Timmins]

I respect this write so much. You obviously have so much depth and your writing shows this.