QUI FACIT PER ALIUM, FACIT PER SE

I dreamed last night and flung my soul
Into the murk of ages dark with blood,
And hooded monk and wheel and stretching wrack.
Iron maidens mawed with piercing spike,
The sickening whacks
Of maul and mace and cudgel
That brake the backs of women, children, men.

I say I flung my soul into the steel thewed arms
Of Holy Mother Church
Who cloaked it ‘round with granite piety
And gave its loving care to Torquemada.
I viewed his halls with my soul’s salt dried eyes,
I heard the cries and smelt the awful galls
Of bladders burst and sundered bowels;
I heard the howls of babes and mothers,
Mouths sweetly sealed with pears of iron
Lest sully ear of God or holy servant.

And in that most infernal night I heard Satana say,
I am the Light, not Light of Love, but hate.
A red and pulsing crimson light
That sought the soul’s most inner cavities.

I pummeled heaven’s gate and cursed at Deity,
And from the anvils of my soul rang out such cries
As shook the naves and apses, great and small.

I railed at God;
Archangels sheathed their wings and took a trembling stance
Nor would advance one daring step
Into the seething cauldron of my created hell.
‘Tis well, said I,
Stand fast, else man and angels die.

But now it is morning.
I awake.
The red light is spent, I am content
As priests would have me so - and whimpering.

 
George W. Martin