Introduction: This piece of free verse is about the wars of being alive and human. Like most of my poetry, it is autobiographical and inspired by old Mediterranean and Norse epics, as well as Christianity, although I’d like you, fellow readers, to read this piece as if you are being written about. We all have endured near-death experiences, heartbreak, alienation because of our unique differences, and societal decay, among other things. This poem is a reminder to embrace the hardship, and remember the greatness we all can see in ourselves!
In death, I was born. The war of the womb. There was no choice but to leave, for death would follow had I stayed. The cold blade of disease struck as storms converged from the four winds. The seeress’ prophecy unto my father told of a child fated for lonesome tribulation. A child, slated for glory in a distant summer, whose vengeance to be quenched. A young cub destined to battle starvation. My heart would freeze. Tragedy would spell my youth. The other children never understood why I gazed into the sullen, commanding eyes of the heroes of old. Caesar. Trajan. Hadrian. Augustus. Ramses. Akhenaten. Achilles. Heraclius. They didn’t know why I saw myself in their empty and enduring marble eyes. Death taught me at five years old that the sands of time dwindle day by day. The sun collapses steadily over the horizon of this life. Neither the day nor hour is apparent. Until the end, war is all a man will ever know. Starvation is my…
