Take Me To Rome

*Saint Paul pray for me


+--------------------------------------/Acts Chronicles Chapter 23; Rome - Saint Paul's Thoughts Hunted and in Prison

The echoes of my nephew’s 
haunting warning stand opposite me
in my cell like sentinels on guard in winter,
lamps flickering in the chilled winds gusting,
the tips of their spears compassed
about every side of my neck
circumscribing my every thought.
In near pitch black I flit in and out of
full consciousness and dreaming,
seizing my chest in fear
misperceiving sweat for blood,
and in the other state blood for sweat
running and falling in recurring
fashion chased by iron chariots on the Appian Way,
(of the Romans, the Jews march behind)
felled by arrows, presentiments
of the damned, or the imminently
damned afraid of Hell because of all the wrong
he’s done, the innocents he's killed,
awaiting judgment and
deluding himself that he is still alive.
In the morning, no less than 40 men want
me hanging from a tree, my body an eclipse
obscuring the blazing sun of their spitefulness
and bitter acrimony, commending me 
to mobs thirsting for heresy seeking a martyr-
parading my severed head throughout
Jerusalem at the Passover, a black smoke
sacrifice
for the High Priest Ananias . 

When I finally awake screaming, and the centurion’s
candle gets closer as he scurries to check
on me, the only words
I can muster are “take me to Rome,”
I need salvation. 



---------------------Acts 23:11-16
And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome. And when it was day, certain of the Jews banded together, and bound themselves under a curse, saying that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. And they were more than forty which had made this conspiracy. And they came to the chief priests and elders, and said, We have bound ourselves under a great curse, that we will eat nothing until we have slain Paul. Now therefore ye with the council signify to the chief captain that he bring him down unto you to morrow, as though ye would enquire something more perfectly concerning him: and we, or ever he come near, are ready to kill him. And when Paul's sister's son heard of their lying in wait, he went and entered into the castle, and told Paul