The Fable of the One-Eyed Holy Man

Once upon a time an eye went for an eye

Until the world’s people went completely blind

Except for a one-eyed holy man

And he naturally made himself leader

In a ceremony he conducted for himself.

Though his beard is grey, he has a mesmeric eye

Blind women visit him to tend his seed gone dry,

His was the charm that mythology spoke of

That was felt in the love of his lovers

Until they had all passed away.

 

His loneliness was an earache

And he no longer wanted to live

No women and their little deaths

No women and their expiring breaths.

 

In his lowest moment tongues of fire came

And touched his head furnacing his thinking

If he were to die, who would describe

The beauties of the natural world,

The arts and creativity of human beings,

The humbling made by the weather’s wrath,

The dreams which light the Yellow Brick Path?

He wrote it all down and drew the pictures

Bound the pages in marble tablets

And buried the manuscript in a cave.

 

It was found by a shepherd and his boy 

And wiping away the dust they did see

His illuminated name on the title page

Author of his genius from another age.