The Seventh Horseman

[mariness]

This particular poem holds the record for fastest acceptance ever: It was accepted literally 15 minutes after I finished writing it.

Quite naturally, it ended up never getting published. These sorts of things happen, although it's always upsetting, and more so in this case because it wasn't that the publication folded, but changed editors – and the new editor declined the poem, something that's happened to me twice. Changing editors is part of the publication process, and often, I think, helpful - well, at least for readers - but it irks me when the new editor shows no respect for the previous editor's choices.

I took another look at it, and decided that it was simply too depressing of a poem – not surprising, given that it was written up from a nightmare, a nightmare that had spiraled out of a rather depressing evening.

I meant to post this yesterday, as a sort of Easter thing, but got sick. So, here you have it now.

The Seventh Horseman

mother was right the seventh horseman
had been a too deadly lover even if
she still felt the burning of his skin
and felt his ashes in her hair
and still heard the silence in heaven at its passing.

The other horsemen had been easy enough
the first too bright to her eyes
the second too loud to her ears
the third too thin to her taste
the fourth too cold to her touch
and her eyes and mouth and ears and face
turned to the tumultuous sea
watching its changing waves
The other plagues she missed entirely,
until the waves stopped coming to the shore
and she turned her face to the land.

Before her lay only a barren plain
empty even of grass and weeds
and the last of the horsemen

She heard her mother's voice in her ears telling her
be wary of men be wary of strangers let no man touch you
and she heard her sister's cry of anguish as her husband hit her again
and her friend's sob of greeting for the second horseman
her friend's shudder at his coldness
her sister's scream
and her mother's whisper "beware the horsemen"
and she spread her arms to him

the seventh, the last. Above them she heard the cry of angels
continuing their killing

he could not be faithless, this one
no other women lived to tempt him
and she taught him of other things than plagues
and he taught her of other things than pain

and above them angels clamoured and about them the clash of reddened swords filled the empty plain
and below them the earth shuddered and shook and was still

and between them the heat rose and anguish whimpered and stolen time stayed motionless

And above them a trumpet blew.

And she heard an angel wail and sank to her knees and wished for death but Death had already passed.

Let me come with you, she begged.

And he broke the world in two, and about her the fires the famine the fear driven by the necessity of destruction were in their turn destroyed.

time is not a gift

She stood on the empty plain and shook ashes from her hair
while about her some trumpets played perhaps
but she could not hear a note nor
understand the tune

(1999)

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I still think it's a tremendously depressing poem, plus, it uses the word "and" too much, but I don't feel the need to clean it up.