Men And Blood

In the other world, the words were different.
The men didn't stutter in their songs.
They welded their strings to their bellies with the wrath of red iron,
In screams, in salivary keening,
They made themselves instruments;
Singers of salt.

It was different.
The men did not lie.
The men told tales while their blood dripped into baskets.
Blood does not know falsehood; or does it?

It was the founding times, when the sands were yet stones.
There were trials, little successes and swooping failures;
No walls, just looming greens, and vultures;
And epitaphs that read like palm oil on a throne of flames.

The men knew how to defeat their bodies;
And makes servants out of tongues.
They did not see themselves as slaves.
Only masters in chains.
When they lifted stone on stone,
Trickled sweat on sweat,
They could still feel the earth in their bones.
Ashes and dust.

In the other world, men did not betray men.
Because men knew blood.
And blood knew men.
Men danced with snakes eating at their limbs
And still would not break the silence for venom.

Indeed the words were different.
There were no lions who shamed parrots.
Or peacocks who taught dogs to sit.
There was only men.
Men and blood;
And the sanctity we were never born to witness...