Call It Courage

I wrote this in high school or soon thereafter.  I found a story I started in college that I may be able to weave this into.  It is not my favorite poem, but I like the rythmn…and I wrote a sequel to it some years later.  I will share that next…

 

Call It Courage

a poem by db mcneill

  

This has been my only sin,

I am the killing violin.

All the nights have tumbled down.

All the flesh has turned to sand.

Beneath the sweet and trembling flesh

I’m spinning here inside your hand

and she says….

 

I am the killing violin.

I am the fire that burns within.

The child moaned.

A man has grown

here within my hand.

Walking westward in the rain

I find new ways to speak my pain.

I’m never coming home.

 

In the darkness I awoke.

A single fear,

the words we spoke.

So much more we have to share.

I am shaking, never dared

to take this moment in.

I can sense a danger.

I could not bear the loss

 if you spiraled down to die

within this violin.

 

Years ago I had a dream.

A precious hope and not so far.

In darkness, you played your guitar.

In blackness, your tears blessed my skin.

The skein of souls that tumbled in

could not have sung their hearts in vain.

You put a bullet through your brain.

 

And so, in time, the truth is clear.

Despite the fire, I live in fear.

Too many eyes have died through this.

Your light could die within my kiss.

Become entangled in my strings.

In a moment hear the scream

spinning in my hand.

 

I cannot live without the dream

or live within the truth, it seems.

I only have the strength to kill.

Something this child must not feel.

The child has grown into a man.

I hold his offer in my hand.

Still I cannot let him in.

This has been my only sin.

I am the killing violin.