Dux Bellorum et Poeta

Where is Arthur king of hope?

I see you bespectacled Merlin
free and well versed
unstuck by the thorns that prick
those boys

you so carefully prune
until they might pull
the sonnet from the stone

but time is short
and Guenevere is beautiful

It is a long night that can not be seduced
and I am short enough of sense to know

Where is he, the horses run
around the stable every night
and we note:

A quest need not be fulfilled
to succeed, but it is a gentle lie:
poets are a soft and fickle lot.

Is it wrong for me to be Lancelot today
and bare my chest so that my hairs
stand tall, and my heartbeat flails

Then, tomorrow, in thick metal rings
and a shining helm scream:

I am Galahad.

What night though can slay our dream?

We are the knight. Still, who is our king?

Where is Arthur?

I gallop o'er the kingdom of the damned
and ponder each bloody stump
each boney bump and the thump
of fingerless stubs upon each drop
of ink. I think it is enough to drink
this vision and know: Yes, these are poets

These are the subjects
These are the verbs

and all is predicated on the notion
that there is no king to rule. There is no right

to verse and reverse, only endless
land to wander as the brush overcomes
every path, until even we knights of that

stable round which iambic hooves
trample a careful stupid path

have forgotten:

why do we care
of beats and beaten
of breast and bone
of breaks and broken
and of breath

ku ku ku... i breathe seventeen times
there's no grail here

what noxious fumes are these
that pound the sense from poet's dreams?

what stone, what slab, what deep dark waters flow
from castles and minds untucked, unfucked, and so
all stuck in the vestigages of modern verse, like one more sixth toe

to stub. to rub wrong the lady of the lake and
forsake the Lord God heavenly king almighty maker
of odes, ballads, pantuoums, rondelet and
villanelle. Hell is another poet -- of this, we can
be quite sure. So

Magician, I ask again
this Holy Grail we seek..
where is Arthur to guide us?

I can wield the sword
ungently into that good night
and swing. I will marvel as you cast
your spell. but well..

unruled and unruly please
announce the coming of the spice
the law, the lay, the land and wise
Merlin -- bow to some Christian with
a heathen blade - so that I might choose

to be the good night
of some new fangled lullabye.

or the green Knight
who slays the fools unwise.