The Mystic’s Recollection

By Fionn’s table, the Traveller sat

In dreams, though not his own

To gaze below on a tortured land

Of brick and barn and bone,

Where he thought sad thoughts,

It was all he had,

A burden carried sore

That anchored deep

The days passed by

When afflicted cried ‘no more’.

He watched them as they wept by stream

And cradled bloody heads

Or creased in pains of hunger forced

In joyless, sodden beds.

He saw the terror spring to life in empty, haunted eyes

And sickened as the crows swept down

To feed, from cruel skies.

He cringed as every scream rang forth

From small unblinking souls

And plugged his ears against the din

That seeped from bodies cold.

He hugged himself and lay, in dark,

As issue boots clumped by,

The cloven hooves of demon men

With souls both black and dry.

Parched, he drank…