Poetry

Red

Came forth from the second seal
Tasting for blood with brandished steel
Saw earth’s sinners and fell like a thunderbolt
Inspiring prayers to see no more and be pillars of salt
Conquered by the red horse and wars called civil
Fighting on two fronts, destined to cripple

The gift of eternal peace we have been deprived
In these times, law falls silent and the red horse thrives
The scourge of the earth, with an endless drive

– R.K. Lightfoot

‘Red’ is the second entry in my poetry series on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and is about War. In this poem I have made reference to quotes about war made by Cicero, Sun Tzu and Caesar.

© 2018
Photo via Pixabay CC0

Poetry

White

Marked with an infallible token of death
Touched by a white horse, now looms my final breath
Rotted fingers and little black spots
An old adversary, come to draw my lot
No beak of rose, juniper and mint will mask the stench
As bodies fill up the fresh dug trench
Pestilence has come upon we peccant souls
Come with a purpose, to fulfil its role

– R.K. Lightfoot

‘White’ Is the first in a planned series of poems about the Four Horseman, with ‘White’ clearly dealing with Pestilence. I decided to have The Black Death as Pestilence’s disease of choice because of the devastating effect the disease had on 14th Century Europe and the imagery that I could draw from it.

© 2018
Photo via Pixabay CC0

Poetry

Marks of Cain

Seven twisted souls lay with me in the night
Caress my lonely thoughts, whisper sweet delights
Dosing off as their seductive poison slowly spreads
Try to run, but weighed down by the liquid lead
Hopelessly scratch at the demons in my veins
On my arms and feet, I wear the marks of Cain
Seeing darkness as the poppy begins to flower
Creeping over and enclosing my mind in a bower

– R.K. Lightfoot

Continuing the drug related theme of ‘A New Reality’ but with my more familiar bleak and dark tones. Thought it would be interesting to have the two contrasting poems about the same subject.

© 2018
Photo via Pixabay CC0

Poetry

A New Reality

Mind untethered and eyes truly open
To the freezing sun and lush crimson grass oceans
Fuzzy air to the touch and tasting unfamiliar emotions
Lost and found in the new reality I’ve intricately woven

– R.K. Lightfoot

A short psychedelic piece of poetry that deviates from my usual bleakness (don’t worry my next poem is familiarly bleak). The main reason I wrote this though was to break up the general darkness of the poems I write and try something different.

© 2018
Photo via Pixabay CC0

Poetry

To dust, you will return

Standing in a world where man has returned to dust,
Is this our reckoning for sins of wrath, greed and lust?
No flood for the wicked, no ark for the meek,
The cruel have flourished, no room for the weak.
Some still try to find comfort in grace,
Not even screams are heard as the hungry devour their face.
No morsels left, only thy neighbour.
Carving the meat proves to be hard labour.
Wandering the barren earth with no one listening to the pleas.
Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and sea.

– R.K. Lightfoot

‘To dust, you will return’ is set in a post-apocalyptic earth with a starving human population that has turned to cannibalism to survive. I employ a fair amount of religious imagery throughout the poem. The poem took me surprisingly little time to write after struggling to write anything for a while. And ‘To dust, you will return’ continues the dark and violent themes that seem to recur in all my poems.

© 2018
Photo via Pixabay CC0