Morning Poem by Tom Billsborough

Was it not I who once had happy,
Heroic and legendary youth
To be inscribed in leaves of Gold?
By what crime, which error
Do I merit my present weakness?
Those of you who claim that beasts
Utter sobs of anger, that sick men
Despair, that the dead have bad dreams
Try to recount my fall and my sleep.
I can no better account for myself
Than the beggar with his continual
Paters and Ave Marias.
I no longer know how to speak!
Yet today, I believe that I have
Finished the account of my hell,
Truly hell, in the old fashioned sense,
Where its gates were opened by the Son of Man.
From the same desert, on the same night,
My tired eyes waken to the silver star,
Not stirring the king of Life, the three Magi,
The heart, the soul, the mind.
When shall we go beyond these shores
And mountains to hail the birth of new labour,
Wisdom, the flight of tyrants and demons,
The end of superstition to worship..
For the very first time.. Christmas on Earth?
The song of the heavens, the march of peoples.
Oh Slaves, let us not blaspheme Life!