madness – Jormunghast

A Mistake

Like a step taken too soon, and cold
hard concrete meets the teeth: flowing
      iron-taste fills the mouth;
   now you cannot
           speak.
Nor should you: you betray
a true intention falsely fulfilled.

Keeper of lore unsuited to man’s mind,
Enough to send a common fool screaming
Mad into the bleary drunken night.

      and a symbol of passion’s play
      dances elfin ’cross your sight
      as you speak the damnèd word:

Crippled chaos unleashed
in private display of indignation.

Now you can’t believe your eyes, this cold
blue light that meets your sight: realisation
      that lines wrought in innocence
   brought you to
            the bloody brink.

So close your tome of falsehood,
and let the sweet madness still.

A Screed to Live By

You are nothing: remember this fact as you age, my son;
Recognise that when put next to the golden others,
You are less than a man, with heart of grey — no fun
Will ever last, no soul will ever join you under the covers.

Line yourself up and see — a little short, are we not?
It is because we are different, my boy: we are the worst
That the crop had to offer — runts — left, they forgot
To keep us under the wing, neither special nor first;

Blackened are our fingertips. We have naught to take
For granted, nothing to look forward to: were I to procreate,
It would spell only a sallow, hollow existence; it would not slake
The everburning ember, nay, like ash it would only fall to further hate.

Take it easy then, my brother. Take it in your stride.
Let life slip through your fingers as if ’twere common dust.
Each day will brighten and darken, ebb and swell does the tide—
Take a sip, from one neck to another, and taste the rust.

The rest will die when God sends:
It ends when it bloody ends.

Only a Dreaded Scene at a Party

             I declare today that I am Poetry.
I am Spenser’s load and Eliot’s entrails—
                    Worth more than a penny.
And I declare today that I am to be Understood:
      For as I am Poetry, then I am opaque:
And as for my being opaque, I can be seen
                       Tru’n’thru’n’all the rest.
Today, England is a breathing, walking state
Of affairs; and to be a state of affairs, you must
            Also be reachable and touchable.
So thus I must be “England.” That’s common sense.
I am Poetry and England; and this must b empirikal:—
O, cherished birthday bash, this age of snow’s glow!
Come down, o beauteous cherub, o kind clown
Of bared masque and childish laugh! Keep my
Calf below, in a cellar not unlike Shath’s; for I
Am the One in Blue—      and one is, ever, two—
(Unless one is done with all wrath and cud to chew)
—So let’s call it a day and seek a joy much less of excess—
And should not just I and thee make a play of act of one:
     Two parts, two roles, together again!,
   Chuckling like fools in a rancid tavern
And undoing idiocy for the laughs of good old Jack!
                                                    AM I UNDERSTOOD?

—What’s he saying?
—I don’t know, I can’t hear him