The First Drop

"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood

 / Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather

 /The multitudinous seas in incarnadine, 

 / Making the green one red." 

 ~~ 

 William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act II Scene II 

 ************************************* 

 Drowning and floating and drowning again 

 At the bottom of an ocean of gore: 

 Living and dying and living again, 

 Whilst Sin crouches at my door! 

 

 Word on the street: I'm beyond saving, 

 I can't see the stars where I am. 

 So save your tears for the deserving - 

 This world hides from my shame. 

 

 My mark drives me hither and thither, 

 Foul rag in a gust of wind; 

 Doors I knock on crumble and wither 

 'Neath my touch, and His wrath so blind! 

 

 So, am I really my brother's keeper? 

 I'll rot in Hell! Wait. I can't die, remember? 

 I'm a tiller of the soil, and a reaper 

 Of fruits; but no grave, however somber 

 

 Can hold my bones, and feed my flesh 

 To the worms. Not a blade of grass, 

 Not a single leaf can push 

 Its head from the earthen mass 

 

 That gaped to receive his blood. 

 The blood that haunts! O, terrible scourge! 

 It screams my name, in a sweeping flood 

 That no penance can purge. 

 

 Thus over and again I sink and drown, 

 In an ocean of kindred blood; 

 The first drop ever, spilled by my hand, 

 Turned the layered green, one red!