I Threw The Scarf About My Face Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

I threw the scarf about my face
Feeling the chill and yet
More frosty-chill the air hedged about me:
My verses leapt like to green sea-waves
Tossed hapless and merciless in the storm
Their guilt stood written on their face
Their failures in the tunica glared
That scarlet am I condemned to wear
That I with my sins be undistinguished full:
The pain of humiliation rises more
Than stench of rotting flesh burning and burnt
The blood leaps forth in every tissue
That faces burning like to every house
That still non-burnt lies while the Great Fire
The tainted city ravages: and frosty-chill
The air hedged about me all hostile-red
And like to green sea-waves my verses leapt.