Pilgrim's Progress

Here's the finished version of a poem I posted in its uncompleted state a while ago. A couple of things to note: each stanza details a different site of Christian pilgrimage and they form a sort of rambling trail towards Jerusalem. He’d climbed the balding Croagh in sickly light Racing the dawn and stumbling upon the scree To ponder on the valley choked with sea And mud but as he stood the sun shone bright On skeins of greyish fog that clumped and veiled The melancholy vista from his sight So he took his leave of misted isles and sailed On frosted scuds to the grotto ‘neath the mountain Where he’d heard a lady blessed a fountain And saints with fevered eyes all sipped and wailed But all he heard were a thousand silent groans From bobbing Jesus heads that sat impaled He chased a rumour of songs that lived in stones In vain to Santiago’s western stair For the blushes on the chiselled faces there Weren’t the setting sun’s reflected tones Upon the erection straining to the sky Which squatted on the crumbs of weeping bones As whispers of a crime were drawing nigh He up and joined a circus heading west And found a girl with a single tattooed breast That read; “All love and death are writ in the sky” Asked why she hid it from the dancing sun She told him “Because it’s only half a lie” In blistering heat he stumbled on a nun A-wandering all alone beside the Nile He caught her eye and the remnants of a smile While crocodiles were snapping at shadows for fun She pointed east and spoke but her voice was drowned Beneath the silent hunter’s thunderous gun He traced her rambling steps back to the ground Where a troubadour who lived once he had died Lay buried with his killers on either side Oblivious to every pretty sound That floated by the chapels on the breeze And ruffled the cloaks of friars on the mound The scraps of well-dressed secrets strung from trees Were waiting amongst the shadows of the Alps When delirious he sought his brothers’ scalps And though he ground the bones from both his knees He couldn’t move one thread upon the face Of the simple man decaying by degrees As days grew clear and cold in the sun’s embrace And wisps of cloud were pale with icy sheen He dragged his tired carcass through the green And glistening grass to beg the Helpers’ grace He sat before their golden walls for weeks With muddy eyes that couldn’t find a trace Forlorn he cursed the beauty that sorrow seeks With doubt his lone companion he trudged on blind To the Hill of Crosses with wind-burn on his mind And hopes of free redemption on his cheeks He called a salutation and paused to hear The forest of faith just swayed with hollow creaks With chills about he followed a glimmer near The city like a troll on the road to the south Sweat and Turkish dust had caked his mouth And so he stopped to rest and drink a beer Three days later he woke alone and cold With blood and vomit crusted in his ear Through a town and past a well he rolled Where birds were growing fat off juicy seeds And cuckold fathers preached their baser needs To markets where their dignity was sold He asked them ‘bout the mount of talking goats But none had heard of it, or so he was told His memories were melting now and quotes From dying martyrs swam in what was left He wished upon an early star that cleft The twilight for a song and willing throats In Bethlehem he caught a little tune But empty stables swallowed all the notes That night he sat below a dogged moon To watch the sun reveal the olive groves Then join the pilgrims in their boisterous droves But in a place where promises were strewn He thought the hills’ familiar quiver odd And rose, recalling a fabled pale lagoon