Violare Poem by Jerome Michael Pindell

I

Skin is translucent thin
Beneath early fitted armor.

A prized protection worn
Invisible in weight and dressed invincible.

Yet even iron
Gives way to the hammer,

Imagining freedom
Amidst the showers of arrows

And the slicing of swords
At the pedestal assumed before the caveat.

Violable to words
Slicing easily to red depth,

Where, if there would be no gap
For feeling burning sun or cooling breath

Behind the hammered destiny,
Skin's lament would not be heard.


II

Armor does not feel,
Surprising the unprotected seams

Beseeching contact with another.
Solace seeks relief from the weariness of capturing steel,

Longing to let go the armor,
And fall to the gravity of earthly

Embraces from the hand of another
In search for the relevance of angels,

Belying the armor's necessity,
Even as blood flows and wounds appear

Upon the translucent skin
Of an unsheathed warrior.

Dare to allow an unbidden in sweet disguise
To enter the field at twilight to wield

The embrace upon the critical flaw within,
And forge a softening temperament.