Just Begun Poem by Beatrice Preti

There's a beautiful sound that a wounded bird makes
When it screams its last breath as its slender neck breaks
And the sweet, salty tears of a puppy in pain
As its once-loving household turns slowly insane
There's a mad sort of ringing from the mice in the cave
When they figure out the map it took so long to engrave
And the glee in their silence when it turns out a trap
Leaving nothing still breathing…not even a bat
And the voices of crowds still screaming my name
Their calls for my death have brought me to fame
The judge speaks in riddles, but I only smile
Their fear and the darkness will stay for a while
And they can insult me, and call me foul names
But it doesn't fool me — they're masking their pain
They shiver each time they find broken limbs
Scattered in basements, offered in sin
The dignified rituals in tome and in tunes
Of catacomb legends and mummified runes
But they can't understand, and they'll never see
The beauty in the struggles of a suffocating bee
The bright lights fading from a dying doe's eyes
As it watches the stars fade from the sky
Or the grandeur of a falcon shot down during flight
How curious that these things cling so desperately to life
I will never beg, and I will never squirm
I am a Man, not a pathetic, mewling worm
And they can pronounce their sentence, saying that they've won
But we both know that, in the end, the madness has only just begun