Cuauhtémoc's Feet

These feet from Tenochtitlan
Of the defeated god of the lake,
Have the tendons and veins
Of a warrior, the swooping eagle
From the heaven of five suns
Descending with folded wings
Weaving the air like baskets
With beaks sharper than razors
And feathers as thick as leather,
With talons dissecting the sky
To free the moons, the stars,
The seasons, the July rain,
Chopping the cotton clouds
Into crystals and gusts of wind,
And plummeting like a dagger
Or a kite that breaks its thread.

My feet walk for endless miles
In the streets, on asphalt roads,
In the alleys, on painted sidewalks,
blocks of cement, parched earth,
To live among predators and prey,
Beasts, gluttons, hungry carnivores,
To suffer among naked children
Brown and half-dead in the sun,
Among beggars and bleeding women
Whose eternal pain feels the same,
Among the old, the limbless invalid
Who hit and blind each other’s eyes,
Who cut and broil their deaf ears,
Who pull and swallow their tongues
At the altar of sacrificed hearts
Left to dry and their blood, to drain.

They trudge in the dry valleys,
The death mountains, and the dead hills,
In the desert of cactus and skeletons,
In the bordered hell of moving cameras,
Stray bullets, and electric barb wires,
In the midst of sinners preaching
Charity and stories about angels
And saints self-anointed to punish,
In the guise of sacred blessings
With holy water, incense, and myrrh,
The burnt skin of these same feet
Whose royal bones and serpent blood
Cortes set ablaze a long time ago
To boil and burst before confession
Because nuggets of gold were corn
And the bloody cross was sword.

Do you think anyone can actually manage to say this all in one breath? I suffered from anoxia just reading it :D Honestly, I feel it would benefit from a full stop or two. There is great imagery here, but perhaps a bit too much. The seemingly endless succession of subordinate clauses makes one forget what the opening statement actually was, before reaching the conclusion. Could definitely do with a bit of a prune, and a bit more structure, thus allowing the poem to breathe. Try splitting all that wonderful exposition into individual sections, if you get my drift.

Live and be well - H

Hawk, I posted the longer version. Thanks for the advice. I forgot readers need to breathe. :)

Readers of poetry should take breaths after a line, no? That's why Walt Whitman can be so tiring when read.