Of Shouts And Whispers On Landscapes of The Mercenary
Today, yeah, what about it, storms pass, people too, pacts are broken.
It’s not a streetlight shine pulling me on in the night, not desire, not need,
no Gatsby garbage, it’s the haze around the stars that bear my future.
Like a mock Merlin to his amber lily Morgan, I was frozen for giving.
Today melancholy and betrayal strike down the grandeur of love and friend.
I search the water’s edge for animal signs and life. Return into the earth.
All deals are off. I’m setting up my own mythology now.
After the storms, stalking across the shell littered sands, thinking,
hunting for my self in fallen laurel, hunting in the currents rushing by.
I don’t care anymore about what I’ve done, the water shows me what’s gone,
it’s all too symbolic, it’s all too real, like light on slate that conjures
an old image of my home burning down, like the crackle of leaves
loosed and falling, it all sounds cruel when it should be of beauty.
I could rattle and cast yellow hen bones down on wine stained stones.
I could steal my thread from the Fates own loom, tell them to stop,
to just take a rest and try the whole damn thing all over again.
But no, I strip away another layer of skin, bite my lower lip,
squint and flex another neck muscle, dare heaven to give me peace,
and if not that, then make me a better man. Cliche?
I’m the one bleeding. I’ll do anything to just walk free.
Trust expectation:
Jacked up on memories, on dark passages in the cave, I remember this
taste of stainless steel on my tongue, the ripping sound of flesh torn
from a fresh kill, the horrible smell that the dogs so love, that makes
me gag, but it was for the food, the venison of first frost. Today,
what is hunger? I’m not a farmer. I’ve learned not to hope, nor to kill.
I cannot hope, never hope. Hope is death drive. Water rushes by....
Searching Southern blues freckle reflection with the good and bad,
of times I believed truth was a in woman’s voice, and in her womb.
I know better now, that’s not the way. I cut the human cord.
My life was spent pleasing mercenaries and thieves. No more.
And so I walk the damp paths and back roads of a land alive.
Hell, there’s nothing home to hold me, to tell me it’s all wrong,
just me moving away from all the carnage and misunderstanding,
just a dare of soul to step aside from the refrain, “I want to be honest...”
those are the ones who kill, the trusted never need to say it (be honest).
I don’t want to end up coughing blood phrases of Baudelaire gunslingers,
“truth is a whore,” and all that stuff. So, yeah, take aim, hold steady,
there’s a romantic in the mist, and I will not shut up. I stand.
I’ll do anything to walk free, to trust more than the stars.
And close on my heels I hear the coyote whisper, “don’t forget,
your heart’s still open, it’s still open. Wash away the acid smells,
the taint of lost friendship, nothing’s worth it with those
who value nothing.” And closer coyote comes and shouts in my ear,
“they’re little emperors drunk on Nietzsche about power and the good,
they are the bridge burners, ritual lovers, great with quotes,
but they value nothing”......and when I turn to speak I hear only a howl
of the pack racing hillside, chasing each other, moon hot and alive.
Maybe my wounds will heal. Go on, go on...I want to join them.
I have done everything I can to walk free, and my heart is open.
Fleet lamb, still bleeding from the wounds of circumcision, the slap
into life, still bearing the chains and amulets of my birth, my feet
are scarred from running, and I stumble on the rocks, reach for hands
not there, fall and bruise, rise up towards this jagged Job cursed sky,
wash off the mud, rub my palms on my thigh, spit, pray release the hate.
I’ll do anything to walk free again.
