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

[Cryingkate]

Hmm I couldn't just read it and walk away with nice words and no understanding :-) so i did a quick search...http://www.alexander-the-great.co.uk/hephaestion.htm on the word..Hephaestion

Now I ask you what more would you like to share about this?

[Patrick]

I don't know why I say this, but this seems very cosmic and very intriguing

[Lauriegirl]

I love the whole theme and flow of this. This is very unique and creative. Good work

[John Anderson]

very nicely written. Nice work!