THE KING'S PEACE
Michael Ives
what have I betrayed that these diseased orions are again visible which eye which sky they are one and the days fly into the face like spoiled fruit winged upon awakening the nights with calm assurance standing behind the ceremony of sleep masturbate the point in its keeping up appearances long since quartered and buried for what need more than these rags day and night other than memories failed attempts to domesticate shadows have become as an abandoned hermitage against the constant trembles mornings carbonized by distant sirens mattocks to what was once told before about the world we border might have stemmed this swelling dread of shadows in all their dark impenetrability nor for apparent lack of substance at all mild moving as they please swords wielded by a mad indignation of objects of edges even of lullabies and sink a grain of menace into our waking hours hold their farewells in their eyes westering unaware of the light that closes behind them into inky threads the bride of space terrified her true king shelled for the wood lice pouring out our only food bourneless however heavily covered with mouth our way a gorgon of telling cross out those words let no one read what we shall suffer having learned too late the dreams we cultivated thereby to dwell wholly within had been trained from birth to avoid our kind yet like lambs encouraged in this we move with undeliberate stealth into castles left momentarily empty of pulse the fright produced in them who return upon seeing us standing quietly in obscure corners after such passionate hiding such heights and depths as even an infant one day delivered into these frail arms but must suffer so soon again to be dispatched outward against the tide of appearance to a barren spit of rock between two fires the fine work of faces ground smooth eyes and mouth paved over murlmewes of crease dimple mole erased to Cycladic anonymity of unimaginable dimensions against whose massive emptiness all solid things will erode to the very leaf until leafless they recede and impotent memories take root flower and again blister and seed in the while and wind
peeling night away from its dead oriole and our eyes ready for harvest need only what smoke needs surround an emptiness lighter than the shadow of vanquished peoples to gather up their moveables in haste the air they despise yet breathe the same mindfulness lords anguish tie me to their night when the tree commands where cries swerve toward the edge of secret vestments on the blackest of which we eventually fall to chewing and the attempt to domesticate shadows a hermitage against convictions or has that already been written or yet any mention of the twelve intersegmental membranes along the thoracic cavity of belief that when crushed together produce a powder has this been recorded a purgative capable of inducing denials as irresistible as the tidiest delusion has it been said that a menace is strung along our . . . and . . . no our . . . our . . . suffering that it will raise its pearl one day upon . . . and . . . and numbers their beautiful shapes but that they only hide the ruination of what once must have been whole has that been written the hidden . . . scars the categories “visible” and “defiled” who has recorded their conflation of void where once was body wandering sleepless resentful . . . have shadows been mentioned have I spoken of the shadows