fractured sagas

[Delta40]

Here is a mythos
which cannot be annexed
between the pages
of folk lore.
Saddling untamed dreams
in an imaginary field
eludes us like the hope
of a desolate waif
wandering along a railroad track.
Legend and fable weep and piss
without a protective dust cover, wailing
Save us! Save us!
Love festers on the asphalt like roadkill,
injured in its innocence by self gratification.
Dismissed as a token memory it decomposes
in the shadow of an eerie moon.
Caught in the backdraft of sin,
final wishes are dragged for miles,
lacerating the flesh
till there is no oil left
and we arrive at a fruitless dead end.

[Haunted]

wow, exceptional Delta! My favorite lines:

Love festers on the asphalt like roadkill,
injured in its innocence by self gratification.

[PrinceMyshkin]

My God, this is bleak! Bleak and in many places brilliant. I do have trouble, however, with



Saddling untamed dreams
in an imaginary field
deludes us...

where "Saddling" &c. feels like too unwieldy a subject for the predicate that follows it.

[Delta40]

Thanks Haunted and Prince. I edited deludes to eludes (I see better in the morning light!)

[Hawkman]

Yes, I too have a little bit of a problem with "Saddling ... elludes us." Success in saddling might be ellusive but not the act itself, I think. I'm not sure that you need "piss" either. It seems rather like gratuitous coarsness and lowers the tone as if with a flash of spiteful rage. Controlled anger is far more powerful.

However, I Loved the imagery and conceit of the poem, that there are no "happy ever afters."

Live and be well - H

[Bar22do]

Miserable, not hopeful, though again so very well penned, delta.
(I'd only lose "fruitless" before the dead end; dead end is powerful enough alone, but perhaps I'm wrong).

[Delta40]

thanks Bar. This one is now set in concrete!

[kittypaws]

I always look forward to reading your writes, Delta! And as usual this one is outstanding.

kittypaws

[PrinceMyshkin]

Rereading this I wondered if the lines


[Caught in the backdraft of sin,
final wishes are dragged for miles,
[/CENTER]

were consciously or otherwise a reference to the recent execution of the man who tied an Afro-American to the back of his truck and dragged him along a (dirt?) road?

[Delta40]

Rereading this I wondered if the lines



were consciously or otherwise a reference to the recent execution of the man who tied an Afro-American to the back of his truck and dragged him along a (dirt?) road?

I haven't read such a report but how terrible!

[PrinceMyshkin]

I haven't read such a report but how terrible!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Byrd,_Jr.

[Delta40]

What an awful act. I see one of them was executed last week.