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Based on Mary Renault's "The Persian Boy", another love song to Alexander amidst hunger and war.

lyrics

Bagoas

Won’t there be snow?
Our mouths would be cups,
our hands, helmets
taken off for a dip.
Homage is the greatest gift
to the giver as well.
Earnestness is the only quality
this loyalty has left.
Earnestness! Loyalty!
More pure instinct, my lord,
devotion, the whole soul,
and longing deeper than thirst,
the knot of it, love and fear
dragging on past the grip.
Here, not even cowardice
can have any force.
Cowardice——
the waterless days, the sands,
the gourds withering...
Cowardice——
the mica mist, the feet stirring
grit, the thousands pushing forth
through mirages, and through the dropping
of horses, the haze, the haze,
and with much farther to go...
That’s why keening stays silent.
That’s how whispers fill the gulf,
and you, in fountain shimmers,
the spectacle of good sun——
How shall I know you
without your wounds,
the heat of them,
Sebastian’s?
How shall I know you at all,
gentle tyrant, without the blaze of
your marks which my hands did fondle
‘til we were both cool?
Here, waiting to cross another drying
stream, a different fissure,
visions appear:
crags this side of Eden,
and, Alexander, battles.
Did exploration take conquering?
Did freedom take funerals?

Now we are dissolute.
Now evaporative spirits rain upward,
and how shall I find you?
Look. Snow is falling,
its wet feathers prayers
of spring, and I was only sleeping,
some seer in fever, but what
do these words mean
when your arms are so close,
when this tent has their heat,
and outside there’s just the heavens?
Come, my lord, the men have struck water
and I must say nothing
of all that I dreamed.

credits

from Whispers of Arias (I), released December 24, 2012

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all rights reserved

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Stephen Mead Albany, New York

A resident of NY, Stephen Mead is a published outsider artist, writer, maker of short-collage films and sound-collage downloads. If you are at all interested please place his name in any search engine in conjunction with any of the above-mentioned genres for links to his multimedia work and merchandise. To order CDs via VISA or PayPal please visit stephenmeadmusic.weebly.com ... more

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