To begin ...

As the twentieth century fades out
the nineteenth begins
.......................................again
it is as if nothing happened
though those who lived it thought
that everything was happening
enough to name a world for & a time
to hold it in your hand
unlimited.......the last delusion
like the perfect mask of death

Monday, June 14, 2021


Jerome Rothenberg & Sadie Rothenberg

THE SHADOW OF A MAD KING (1-7)

Poems & Images

a work in progress

  
(1) 
summoning the sacred voice
of Shelley
a curse on GOD & KING & LAW
the echo of a poet's angry cry
against a mad king

 (2)

out of his mind & ours
the mad king rages
casting all hope aside
the phantoms of the past

reborn as lies

 (3)

a family of thieves
& freaky princes
how they surround a mad king
keeping the faces of the dying

out of sight

 (4)

no room for shame
the mad king stares

at his own face
the dead like hornets fly around
& won't be still

 (5)

a mad king riding past
lines of grey bodies
shines a dark light from narrow clown's eyes
but knows no words nor touch

to calm them

(6)

mechanics of despair
the shadow of a mad king
hovers atop the other shadows
ready to let their angry voices

drown out his own

(7)

nothing to focus on
but what his skewed mind

shows a mad king
veneration of a dying world
empty of any sound but howls & lies

 
 


 

No comments: