Genghis Khan sits down at the typewriter, a portable Underwood.
His tortured soul desperately tries to conjure up a Mongolian metaphor for love.
It is a task of barbaric proportions.
Mongol is, as yet, an unwritten language birthed from bone and mayhem.
The sounds are raw and feral.
No font can cage their nature.
But the Great Khan, Universal Ruler, senses a sonnet steeped in The Steppes coursing somewhere under his leather-laced armor.
Certain tribal concubines have indicated this to be his heart.
They have placed their tiny bird-like hands over his iron chest and summoned forth strange visions.
A heart!
As if the Great Khan, master of Central Asia, scourge of China, has need for a heart.
Empires are carved out of destruction, death.
A heart!
A heart would be a liability, a stigma of weakness.
And yet?
Genghis feels an unknown creature course through his veins and stop to drink at the place where the concubines held their tender young palms.
His coarsened skin tremors at the memory.
And so, Genghis Khan, Emperor of Oceans, sits at the typewriter, a portable Underwood, hands bloodied with conquest, body still suited for war.
He sheaths his emotions in strands of silk and sends them forth like arrows of unspoken words in search of prey.
These weapons are of a language that cannot break, complicated, strong.
And once embedded in the heart, the tender teasing of the twisted silk opens words into poetry and the wound seems insignificant.
Copyright 2013
(For Bryan, who loves history, even when it’s invented)
Donna Dakota in Word 
Enjoyed this – thank you for sharing!
Why thank you for the kind words, Leslie.
So happy to see you are writing new poetry! Nice one….
Thanks, Ginny. I had to meet with a poetry group in Saratoga today so I had to come up with something quickly. Now you know why I stick with Cactus Jill!
“a language that cannot break” I want to cry for the beauty and power of your words. You are such an evocative writer. Thank you.
Thank you so much for the powerfully kind comment, Nina. I have not forgotten your poem. It is still festering in my head. Soon. I have my son’s wedding in Cleveland next Saturday so then things will calm down. Stay tuned.