She stood there, her doe eyes shedding tears,
Gentle rivers flowing under the bridge of her nose,
Breaching the banks from time to time,
She dabbed at ‘em when they did, with soft cotton;
And yet they wreaked havoc in no time again.
She was trembling from head to toe, from all that crying.
Crying, the one thing she wasn’t used to.
Pride, anger, passion and even love, probably; but sorrow, never.
None had in the past thought she could cry so much and so well;
Well, who would’ve? The Queen of the Nile rarely did have need to,
A raised eyebrow, an indignant stare was all she needed,
The eyes of Isis were impossible to say no to.
Kings and Emperors weren’t a match, and neither was the most celibate hermit;
Conquerors, warriors and heroes lost their lustre to lust.
And yet, she had remained untouched, a cold breeze freezing all but itself.
She had watched all that loved her wither, with a sympathyless smugness,
And yet, here she was crying, and why so, everyone wondered.
With the gentle curls of her hairdo broken up in a frenzy,
Braided locks a rough plumage, of raven on a rain’s night.
Lips that blushed in haute moments, quivering now.
Were they trying to speak things other than her vanity?
Vain she had been, about being the perfect woman, though to what man?
Ah, do not ask me that, I don’t know. Perfect she was to several,
But calling them men would be a crude insult to manhood.
For they were man enough only to capture her,
In paintings and paeans and pictures wrought in stone.
They could twist brush and mould marble to get her neck right,
The right mix of pride and feminine sensuality.
But what that neck was in carnal thirst, oh how could they know?
The veins that blood coursed through, hotter every second;
The neck a climber held onto, his last grip with sanity.
A step lower and he was gone, such treacherous paths,
Paths to be revered as roads of mortal bliss.
Erotic gifts at every turn, none lost in finding another.
Fabrics unsheathed, battles in bed taking nights and our days too.
A temptress and a tigress she was in bed, and I serving the best match,
Or so I hope. The Queen of kings, a woman richest, and not just in gold,
For Steel was my gold; the more tempered the better,
Yet it was her temper that turned me away, from steel and steal.
And so we had spent, winters and summers together.
Alas, the gods envied us, acrimony brewing over our matrimony,
Envy burnt through us, and war parted us.
No longer were the battles in bed, for there now was blood,
Land and sea we fought on, losing more and more of us each time,
And yet it was this us we fought for and this us that kept us going.
While I was winning, I was losing too. Navies I destroyed, and friendships too,
Armies were decimated and armouries emptied, but so was my amor.
Winds that stank of blood brought me sad tidings, making me stop.
Battles and wars are meaningless when the cause is lost, as was mine.
My sole soulmate, the breath of my life, had decided to take hers away.
Swords I had plunged through men came back to haunt me,
And all my shields turning traitor, I had but one thing to do.
So I fell; from fame, from glory, from power and love, upon my sword
Throwing away a life, that had little left to live for.
But all was not done yet, for she still was,
The last moments of a life wasted, were spent well lived,
Her bosom was my succour, her breathing tears, my wine.
And now I lay here, in my own personal wooden cabin,
As the earth is dug to take me in, thoughts flash across my mind.
The one thing, I lived for, the one thing men die for,
One look at her face is all I want at this moment,
But that is denied to me, but there shall be no despair.
That face, hidden to me, by slender fingers of the Nile,
Is hidden away in grief, at my loss. She that cried for nothing,
She that feared nothing, she that did not as much as bat an eyelid
In the most dreadful and terrifying of times, she is now in tears and all for me.
Me that was but another soldier who threw his life away under guise of glory.
Eternal fame is but passing, pales in company of a woman’s tears.
For it is all that a man yearns for, all his life; to be loved, to be wanted.
He fights to love, kills to live and forgets to remember, all for love.
Wave upon wave of bliss and grief mix freely as the Blue Nile touches the Red sea,
I count the seconds I have of seeing daylight, as not many do exist.
The wooden walls close around me, and my boat rocks as though in waves.
A warm palm runs through me, the deep gash on my chest,
The completion of life, the attainment of bliss, all saints talk about.
I know now, it lies not in the thirsty roots of trees or the hungry bones of man,
It lies in knowing, that the life you lived, the life you loved so much,
Meant more to one that was not you; that someone would throw their existence away
Simply because you were no more. Such wisdom along with pain disappears with her touch.
Armours melt and wounds heal, but breathe I shall no more.
A new body, blessed with her final touch is buried,
The old soul still residing within her, wanting nowhere to go.
A lid is placed over my face, with hers being the last sight.
My timbered home is taken six feet under, where it shall await her.
Not long, I am told, when I shall have company and honour
In the halls of greater fathers. Honour I had killed for.
But that too fades, as does my sight, as I wait to have her with me;
That she gave all that she loved, to be with me as I did,
Has made a life of pillage and murder worth living, even if for its final moments.
Legions may die, allegiances may shift, but we shall be remembered.
While envious hapless men potent only in the tongue may blame me
Of abandoning coronation for carnation, I will have my following.
In the annals of Cupid’s sacred lore, we shall be a golden page.
Bards will sing my tale, not as a great soldier or a brilliant orator,
But a lover, lost in love, separated by war, united in death.
