Issue 6.1 Fall 2010

 

cover image

 

Ascension, Demise

Colin Butler

 

Barren, vast space
Soil laden with fertilizer remnants
Of fantastical aspirations, unfulfilled
Weighing upon spirit, laid low
When fortune stretches thin enough,

 

Wind sweeps across the plains, unimpaired
            To catch a wretch whose
Arms like kite wings, unfettered and outstretched.
When Grace finally spreads wide its incisors
Into a hint of a smile
To be completed on the face
Of a newly christened Icarus.

 

The Sun’s brazen glory saturates the mind’s eye
The light is a lie
Next comes the ascent
As hope starts to climb.

 

But blazing inferno banishes
Conceptual fictions; mental uppers
Drip and disappear when illuminated

 

When disillusionment degenerates
The descent will not abate
In the sun’s ruthless ray
Wings begin to fray

 

The Fall’s impact breaks open the ground
            Down, down, down

 

The new journey thus begun
Just to get back to ground, square one.

Euphemism Campus Box 4240 Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790-4240