The Gate Beautiful

By Phil Letizia

Trying times, the colors preach
Great shadows cast down from the Gate
Shapes beyond my broken reach
While men of magic wave and teach
To hide my harm but mask my hate

Those eyes to greet the legs beneath
Bulls they drag inside their wall
“The Gate!” they say, can bring relief
Such splendor bone from old belief
The Autumn tint that brought my fall

“Alms!” I cry “Alms! Not to die”
Pocket filled with gilded nails
Not a word could shut the eye
Or mute the knell from the belfry
That tears Dame Folly from her veils

Tonic purged my filth, my hate
I crawl towards beauty and the Gate

2005