WEAPONS OF TIME

WEAPONS OF TIME

(painting by Robert Margetts)

Through the archways they did come

through the millennium of time

from Khan to Hitler
from John Wilkes Booth
 to James Earl Ray

From the bronze era
 to the atomic era
to the nuclear era

each bearing his own form of hardened steel

Pride, honor and vengeance

Distrust, loathing and power

Evil and corruption

filled the damp granite halls

as the soldiers of time trampled upon the rustic cobblestones

in their sullied boots

A nod of recognition here

a shove and a scowl there

they clutched to their insidious weapons

like starve ridden babies clinging to a full breast.

Maidens bustled in tight corsets

swayed to the rhythmic tones

that bubbled from their flutes.

The soldiers of time

stood to attention

awed by these ladies of the night.

These soft creatures dressed in white

so pure of hatred

and so innocent of crime.

With hungry eyes and scarred lips

did so desire to fill their needs

The few sober took to the ale

like jackals to rotten flesh.

The first to fall,

the gallant knight
 entombed in his dented armor

He lowered his nail studded mace

and let it fall deep into the hungry moat

Pride and deceit vanished

deep into the silty mud

To the seeker of the Holy Grail

forgiveness from the boy Ward.

In the house of Arthur, the knight was reborn.

The cowboy nodded to the knight,

holstered his pistol
removed his belt

and handed
it to the blacksmith.

Honor and dishonesty

vengeance and hate

were quickly hammered into the form of a horseshoe.

Billy The Kid doffed his dusty cap

and extended the hand of truce,

the branch of clemency.

And for the first time

he shook the hand of the sheriff

And he too was reborn that day,

in the house of Garrett.

The musketeer watching from afar

dropped his bloodstained foil

With a clank upon the courtyard stones

revenge tricked from his murderous blade

The fanning weeds

that fought for space between the crevices

licked the sanguine weapon clean of hate

For the first time in 100 years
Romeo looked upon Juliet

And Capulet
 And Montague
were reborn in the house of Shakespeare

 Hiding in the dark alcove

near the winding stairs stood the most evil,

the most powerful and sinister of creation past.

Clutched in his rawboned fist

and holding the world at bay

Stupidity and hypocrisy tucked in his back pocket

in the form of a bribe

Too weak

Too tired

to fight the soothing array of notes

that placated this once vicious crowd.

He opened his bony hand and dropped the hideous vial into the moat

and with it the secrets of destruction

were quickly swallowed up
 in the murky cool waters.

Bending down to his knees

he did cry

for that day

in the house of humanity

Einstein was reborn

And for the first time, 

since the Seventh day of creation

The creator of dust

and the maker of steel was happy
for in eleventh hour of the day

his faith in humans,

was reborn. 

And he cried
and he cried
for all his children.

The dome in Hiroshima, Japan.  It was one of the very few building that survived the Atomic bomb.  (I took this picture back in April of 1885) 




The hand of death

(painted with Acrylic paint, December 2011 by Robert Margetts)