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