september in rome
It was a cold September in Rome,
and I sat there in a hotel room,
tongue tied
looking at the divide
I went to gallop off but turned out I was just afraid.
Trying to be the center of the pincake
when you can't.
There is nothing left.
Flailing for a truth that you can not find,
unless it is you,
unless you were there.
I was.
He landed on the right bank of the Seine.
Like a swan.
Curdling up for mother's milk,
spreading his wings.
Basking his beak in the river.
It was midnight.
It was the swoon of the swan.
It was his time.
I was there.
I saw it.
His outstretched wings were illuminated, under the moon of Rome.
Like silk tassles.
Time was at stake.
And I had none. (apparently, swimming in the flood when time started to run out, when time was gone)
So I handed him a green snake
who had eggs to hatch.
He took one, and crushed it.
He was the demon in the cricket.
I was the stone in th path he was looking for.
baiting the trap
It was a cold November in Rome,
and I sat there, tongue tied
looking for Tobias
My feet sank.
Sitting on a dock in the 17th arrondissement, the rue de Batignolles.
My feet sank.
I whistled a tune.
No one heart it.
The river was raging.
I wondered if I should wait until June instead.
The spectacle was loose.
no less, no more than the truth of our lives, hiding in disguise.
after we fought the battles.
then there was nothing left to fight.
The thicket stirred.
Like it hadn't before.
The lights, the fireworks went off.
And I remembered why I came to Paris.
For marmelaid.
without a drum to ruin it
To see this again.
He took the bait.
I was lost in a thicket I can not describe.
Oozing eyes, teeth, skin.
The frozen island of our lives is born.
Without a walking cane.
Only in flight.
Pashima is on the loose. The tiger.
The wingback.
When they crossed, they crossed to be kings.
A ransom note was left.
But not forgoten.
I saw it.
I went to Rome.
Too any Australian shepherds calling up to Rome.
Too many blow torches.
The peacock is alive.
Kings will be kings.
I saw a stylish man walk into the café du beurre
in the 16th district
with a bicycle.
He was alive.
More alive than he knew.
Maybe he crossed the bridge.
Maybe he came from the west side of Paris.
He was wearing a faircoat
which I didn't recognize.
I guessed he came from Rome, swam the Seine in between.
Fate was in his hands, and he knew it.
So did I.
I need to calm down the rivers, the rivers of time
are raging currents.
He sung me to sleep.
I am stuck in a river that I cannot find.
Wondering the streets,
looking for Dublin.
And the graves at night.
As if he was waiting for the throne but could not find it himself.
So he wondered alone too
under the bask of the moon.
He crossed the bridge from Dublin town
to the rise, towards the castle.
As a swan.
Looking for his queen.
He didn't look back, either.
She was hiding as a ghost, underneath the bridge in the Seine.
And he didn't know.
All he felt was their connection,
so he boarded a train
and was masqueraded by time.
The train went by, he was pushed to the other side
and thrown to boulders of rocks.
On the other side was a lake, that he didn't see.
A lake that reflected the moontones.
~
The king is lost.
No one can find him.
~ ~
He crossed the bridge to be left alone, meanwhile all of Dublin searched day and night.
