Blood of a Centaur

by Robert Gear (February 2025)

I should have had more sense, trusting him to cross the narrow flood.
I jumped upon his back; ’twas such a lark.
I didn’t dare await the dark.
But then my man his crudeness spied; and struck him with an arrow.
–
He struggled on, blood oozing.  “Take this gore and keep it safely wrapped; it will serve you well,” the half-man-half-beast said, before he fell.
–
We crossed the water;  I thought I heard the tolling of a bell.
=
The monster’s bloody ooze could not be stanched.
–
(To be honest it made me flinch).
–
I kept the blood, it spread and ravished our estate
and made a mute entombment of the land.
(If you’ve read this far you’ll understand)
Nessus had lied; all heroes died; perhaps it was our timid fate.
–

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Robert Gear is a Contributing Editor to New English Review who now lives in the American Southwest. He is a retired English teacher and has co-authored with his wife several texts in the field of ESL. He is the author of If In a Wasted Land, a politically incorrect dystopian satire.

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