Apparitions Of Heroes

Apparitions Of Heroes
© Surazeus
2018 02 06

I make models of people in my head
play roles in social drama I direct
so when your god of worlds is declared dead
I must become the number one suspect.

All heroes of history people admire,
bodies of matter long dissolved to dust,
are idols conjured from our words of fire
whose actions embody our aching lust.

We watch their apparitions on the screen
glowing with bright illusions of our faith,
so people worship the Jesus Machine
and pray to his mute disembodied wraith.

No man of flesh and blood named Jesus lives,
walking this world to perform miracles,
so honor the real live person who gives
their life to break enslaving manacles.

Why worship one long-dead man as world god
when billions of people alive today
plant seeds of their souls in the fertile sod
to emulate actions heroes portray?

Apparitions of Heroes, wearing masks
carved from oak trees who sing by lake of dreams,
rise up from wood tablets while I drink flasks
of mead, and chase their shadows by dead streams.

I see their faces on the wet black bough
bloom into apples of silent reproach
so I ride into town on the milk cow
and join dead poets riding the stage coach.

I do not stop for Death in the Waste Land
so Emily stops for me with sad smiles,
and tells she formed new rock and roll band
with Orpheus as lead singer of spells.

I journey through Purgatory to Rome
where Pope Ezra sits on Apollo Throne
who gives me sacred quill to take back home
but I sing satires on the Jacob Stone.

When Keats and Shelley appear before dawn
to teach me secret code of prophecy,
I carve magic runes on trees of your lawn
then play messiah with humility.

I am the three-eyed raven in white tree
who sings, electric neurons of our brain
generate moral code so we live free
to drink apple cider in winter rain.

I walk the signless road, ignoring Death,
between Oregon and Eternity,
so Sorrow teaches me enlightening breath
while I make love with fertile Liberty.