No such thing as a friend to a king
To be friend to a king is to be friend to a lion
They may lie on you, ply you with affections, rare attentions
But they will never rely on you.
You might die confused
Hauled from chambers accused of crimes inventions of
Meaner minds, such kinds as are found at court courting titles
One day it’s hennin-wearing maids, the next it’s venom and rage
You must be pliant, no defiantly defying, there is only surviving
How long until your kindness is spied as slyness, want for kingship
What is your kinship worth when all the world is his to work, mere dirt
Heavy weighs the crown a hundred pound a million ways to fall down
Low hangs the head that wears it, low hangs the fruited bough, low sinks the losing prow
You can never be a friend to a sacred cow, concubines odalisques and confidantes knowbynow nilbymouth power games the power’s out
He who speaks with a nation’s mouth, whose every indent endows empowers tears down
Whose island-length-breadth rages send ravens cravening from their tower rooks, corvid cowards with mordant powers, their preternatural flocking spells the hour accurate as any three knocks or Banshee knockyoursocksoff screaming.
The Fomorian tower overlooks the island they took off its original inhabitants, for crackpots and fantasists potential Altanteans, La Tene spirals make beaming belle brides of the sea melting sealdwellings rocks in this land of abundant champions
Michael rode the boat ashore, the coastal cock roared like Amergin
Waves recede, leaving like the children of Hamelin
Barnacle Geese fly in bomber formation overseas, I am on the beach at exegese
I spy two bald twigs like wicker man fingers crossed in the sand, first think of Jesus
Then the D-Day landings.
Decorating dunes, a blanding of sand things: winged fish guts, rusted can of Del Monte Fruit Cocktail, Love Song of Prufrockpools, things people lost, a stone stood up marking the beach’s omphalos
Sound of sea in shells, sound of shells underfeet squeezed, tightly packed dolmen undersides grind like teeth, bones break when you walk in hell – but words can never hurt me – scallop shells
The unbridled steeds of the briney winedark sea
Whose dreadlocked fetlocks of seaweed sopping wet no stopping yet
Galloping under the pearlhandled coral lash of Poseidon’s eidolon
Crashing waves and the crashing rocks pissed off about the Argo’s safe cargo
After arduous targets, when they have sent off their martyrs, they barter with pleasure the maid with incredible measurements a merriment for his men
Bardo evening when the dead can be seen, awake dreaming scenes onto the water’s shifting surface.
He drank so many rums pickled Nelson must be dry
Unlidded eye
Steam as from a breached pie spirals sailward from a sneezing metal kettle
Its shrill whistle like a train’s missives or androidic epistles, he bristles
From rest, halfarcs his necks cracking it, pops open the coffee tin lid clanksback
Four spoonfuls of heaped powder at this hour, Cap would make him walk the plank
Another night but tonight is given to the crew in thanks, the men of rank
Are inside drinking fine wine from widehipped tankards, talking Thackeray, their youthful days in Mandalay, rue the day the sun won’t set on something in England’s name
An enormous ray and a school of skates swim alongside slowmoving ship’s slipstream
At home nuts of May and bales of hay, out here drinktops sway
Having a field day on the motionous ocean, what a vexingly ironic notion
Its, bless me, fucking commotion makes the sealegless commode obsessed
Retch so much a newly-bought dress won’t fit anymore
Feel overdressed wearing anything on the ocean floor
The sealegged wet the decks to wash away old vomit and sweat, Augean stables labour
A herculean effort on the part of the labourers, tablesalt of the Earth, salty sea dogs
Who could steer a trireme through a razor reef in a sea fog dense enough to blind God
Men who could whittle a battleship from a log, men who could’ve tied their own Gordian Knots
Knots daunting amounts of nautical miles, long as the Nile or as Time
Most have scurvy red in jaw
Misty milky mercury mysterious Moon sharp and curvy
Mars red tooth and claw bursts forth for adoration, burly and churlish April child, early
Zodiac full of false pride, what the moon hides, its liarlight notsobright
Frightening lease of night, least of things cloven feet cavelings delight in its twilight cover, lunatics taking lunar subterfuge, hailing children from cots
Equal have nots, equal shares, all fear Cap’n’s riding crop
A shadowfull sky, orbiting gulls which only salt-mad mariners dare to make die
They sang or tried, they cried for the men who died, they dined
Though overjoyed, he finds himself reluctant to go over and join in the fun times
He knows he cannot give in kind, he knows his kind and keeps himself confined
To a quiet quarter of the deck, he leans back on the piled nets because everywhere is wet
If he’s to sit he’ll sit here even if they say he’s queer
Good as any other spot in this seadripping kelpripping leviathanlipkissing kip
In his pocketbook he pens shallow verse, ill-fitting verbs, terse tense word usage, twisting rhythm to fit improper rhyme, lack of metrical timing or alignment, yet he was alive
And who was anyone to deny him the right to be his own scribe, to describe things as he saw them, let no law condemn
Let no man constrain
“I will attempt to say what I meant”
Such is his covenant.
Waves tinged with ambergris hissing in like phantom snakes they disappear before getting near
Dear cost to living here, they plant skulls along the beach to strike fear in bold steersman, queer
Idols born of ages idling, welcome to the emerald isle of diddly ayeing.
Alchemisland 
Leave a comment