Barbarous Captivity & Truth Seekers

Barbarous Captivity

The stone confines the angel’s shape;

It grips her hands with awful might;

It clutches at her supple nape

And hinders her attempts at flight.

It melds her tresses in a slab

And clumps her feathers in a whole.

Its chilling hardness seeks to grab

And pinion her striving soul.

But seeing this, the sculptor starts

To pound and chisel frantically,

Not stopping ‘til the angel parts

From barbarous captivity.

Truth-Seekers

They near the sweet oblivion of sleep,

When, suddenly, aggressive bumps astound them.

Another wave? A monster from the deep?

They look, but only slimy shadows bound them.

Then, with no warning, fierce immensities

Of blinding rain and petrifying thunder

Beset their ship, but, finding calmer seas,

They murmur thank-you’s for not going under.

No lighthouse through the whole of this expanse

To guide them with the soothing light it throws;

Just some courageous spirits charting Man’s

Absurd and dismal gaps in all he knows.

Gleb Zavlanov is a poet and songwriter living in New York City. He is a 2017 graduate of Townsend Harris High School. His YouTube channel can be found here.