inkysphinx

Lances are a fool's weapon

They have only one, awkward point, one direction by which they may vanquish. One's whole body must be turned toward it, into it, taking the force of the lance into you as you ram into whatever thing you hope to triumph over. A shield splinters, flesh rends, and blood anoints the lance as it gathers cheers like a stick collects cobweb.

In a world full of wolves one must needs become a hedgehog - to do otherwise invites paranoia, quick-turning and doubt. But for the glorious shudder of victory that hums through the lancer, no joy can be found upon the tourney-grounds. To the rider, they are a waste, but to the hedgehog, it is a quilt, a larder and a playground. The difference is one of rhythms - one's circadian spares others as much as it spares oneself.

My favourite colour as a child was yellow, which never looked very good on paper that wasn't black or some other darker shade. But it was my favourite nevertheless, and much to my teachers' frustration, my drawings would always make them squint. Naturally, the drawings were never quite the best, especially when the yellow was making them near-impossible to see. But, there were times for me when, through yellow, I was able to express something that only made sense to me in that colour, some raw flame that at once floated on the page, while boring through it to some other, brighter world.

"Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens." // "I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things."

"The Missing Brother"

Still learning the poetry ropes :>

Crisis of Faith

I.

Wolf down the scraps,

Snap for the marrow, what

Breadcrumbs one kind mother

Fashioned in her appraisal -

You are too young for lethargy.

There, on the plate: your heart beatless,

Roasted and dribbling.

Flesh breathes,

And all chairs lie empty.

I am not that beast, but matter,

Form bequeathed to meat.

If the good Lord smiles upon me,

His gaps outnumber the teeth.

II.

Atacama weather makes my shirt itch.

I can only watch, my fingers long possessed by boredom,

As lint falls, thread loosens,

And stitches unravel.

Red coins, rubbed to stubs,

Run across my palm, awakening

Muscle-memory - mine, or theirs?

Perhaps they recall the abacus.

I put them in the glove-box,

// Navidad //

Drumming. Pattering of 

feet upon grass, turned dirt, turned sand, 

their soles breaking earth and strand. 

Greedily, we heard 

whistling in the night, land kicked and dug, land 

unripe, unready, untouched, land

everywhere. Spilled.

Our hands latched upon each other - 

we threw pieces of home, bones 

of the mother that bore us. All

would deny it, even in

awful death; our wasted life given 

to the sea - land breaking upon itself, land 

without end, our temple 

burdened with offerings

collapsed - no more cockroaches, 

at last. Later,

we saw and carved it all. 

Our hands grew hard

and calloused, hands 

wrought of reddening work:

blooded. Standing atop the ticks, 

we rubbed our knives 

together. We cut ourselves 

on sun-bleached bones; the droplets 

drummed the earth.

// Malaga //

The midden looms; it accepts 

its place in the centre of our

tumble-down town. It grows and 

rots. Our hands quiver. Humility 

in nature; a start. Darling Uncle Ossian

would be proud. First steps 

staccato, always - you’ve 

got to learn to take. We dug 

our hands into the ooze,

touching the awful weight

of our humanity. We 

warmed each other, huddling round the gleaming midden, 

effigy of sand and rot,

gleaming like a glassy eye, witnessing, 

for once, 

a living history. 

A squirming in the midden. Someone 

cries out, you’ve got to learn 

to take - hands sink 

into the midden. More cries: 

you can’t show up empty-handed

learn without hurting

live without feeling

or feel the pleasant breeze

without grinding the sand

between your teeth - you’ve got to

learn to take. Calloused, reddened 

midden, blooded, worn and 

dirty. We are shovelling

filth away; you cannot see its size 

from there. Arms sink 

into the midden: Take my hand, 

old man - staccato heartbeat, stranger to this human percussion, a drumming 

denied by wasted life. The eyes 

widen to slivers of life. For the 

first time, he breathes. Feet 

patter against bone walls, 

then kick. I can hear the knife 

- mother that bore us - shuddering 

in the dark, cutting the empty, 

grabbing, 

sandy hands - take it, you fool, take it! - He falls.

A million lives 

taken, a midden burdened

with waste. 

Having had his little taste,

the old man draws the curtain