https://staging.psychopomp.com Just another WordPress site Tue, 14 Jan 2025 03:11:11 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://staging.psychopomp.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/cropped-gold-P-square-32x32.png https://staging.psychopomp.com 32 32 https://staging.psychopomp.com/fantasy/july-2021-issue-69/paladin/ Tue, 20 Jul 2021 08:01:14 +0000 https://staging.psychopomp.com/fantasy//paladin/ Shrive me, beloved,
for I have exhausted
the bellows of
this particular life.
Submerge me
under the witness
of all the murmuring saints.
Once, I emerged unscathed
from a dark river of
drowned enemies, stepped
onto the banks grinning,
dripping in glory;
once, I scythed men in
holy fire without question
or regret.
It was enough to have
a sliver of God inside me—
now I bend under
His gimlet eye, now I
dare not straighten knowing
that what I took for permission
was merely silence.
Once, I raised a gibbet cage
and did not gibber.
Brother,
we are all piteous
until we are not.

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