It’s been many years since I wrote poetry, but last night a couple presented themselves to me while I was watching, of all things, The Walking Dead–which probably accounts for their, shall we say, unsentimental nature.


If I had read the runes
I might have known the taste of blood like iron
when the longboats pierced the mist
and kissed the pebbled shore far from home;
and when I went to glory I’d have
filled my mouth with sweet, sweet ale
from the horn of plenty and feasted my fill
with all my kin beneath Odin’s laughing gaze.
But I drew letters on the page from pictures
that dreams gifted to my head, and
in the deep quiet I heard only
the voice of God calling my name.
Until the silence shattered.
His eyes, dragon blue, considered me from the
point of his sword, and when he smiled
he was like the skull he took home with him,
back to the mountains
which frowned upon his straw-haired children
and the woman who cradled him close
after the sun disappeared.


You see me and I you
in a mirror that brings
miles within an inch
of our heartbeats.
I cannot bear it.
I raise the gun
and fire.

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