‘Long Ago’
San Jacinto by Robert E. Howard, reading from A Word from the Outer Dark, page 21
© 2017 James LaFond
AUG/28/17
This single verse of twelve lines consists of three four-line rhymes. The texture of the verse is mood-setting towards contemplation, with a soft threat of the drowse, as if the author seeks to lull the reader to sleep on a warm afternoon so that he might awake to some startling event. This reader suspects that San Jacinto was composed as a poetic overture to a short adventure which begins and ends in singular solitude. In this I am reminded of Howard’s poetic lead in to The Pool of the Black One.
There is something weirdly magnetic about this darkly pastoral verse.
“Long ago on San Jacinto…”
fanatic
on combat
when you're food
sons of aryas
ranger?
orphan nation
all-power-fighting
the gods of boxing
let the world fend for itself
barbarism versus civilization
your trojan whorse
under the god of things
logic of force
uncle satan
solo boxing
the greatest boxer
predation
sorcerer!
book of nightmares
america the brutal
the lesser angels of our nature
hate
into leviathan’s maw
beasts of aryas
broken dance
son of a lesser god
z-pill forever
on the overton railroad
the sunset saga complete
night city
the combat space
songs of aryas
dark, distant futures
advent america
triumph
the greatest lie ever sold
by the wine dark sea
the year the world took the z-pill
masculine axis
within leviathan’s craw
time & cosmos
the first boxers
fiction anthology one
fate
cracker-boy
honor among men
wife—
song of the secret gardener
menthol rampage
taboo you
the fighting edge
thriving in bad places
logic of steel
blue eyed daughter of zeus
winter of a fighting life