Archive-name: Poetry/iseult.txt

Archive-author: byron elbows

Archive-title: Iseult





Once upon a time, she whispered:

my four corner seagulls, the apostles of my desire,

will bind your limbs to mine forever with strands of sea

My love will hold your will,

do you not understand?

And then, to the sky:

Oh father forsaken, forgive your childbride!

She has heard the calling, an odd throb

from a human engine at the breakeven point

Do not believe that I cannot make my love

from another



Quhark!  Quhark!  Quhark!  Quhaaaaarkh!

And in the distance shh! peaceful



Now see me, a carnival mark,

the other from which every one is made:

I submit to you---my love---

I have nothing left but a hollow throne,

a comfortable place to sit in my dotage

to watch the weeds seek out the ebbing tide

and see in the reflecting tidepools history replay myself

once again foolish, and young



Lie by my side, my one,

closed eyes run over

with heaving hair and heart---

that stone you may call it, if I do,

and run fingers over it to smooth the caltrops

Say to me, do not come,

and I will run to no avail, listen to you

cry no more

    no more

    no more will kingdom come

and as the walls come crashing down

in spite of your autoerotic admonitions

and rest and soothe upon your thighs

in blood and tears riverrun

I hear helplessly (as do all fallen kings)

the whine of ecstasy flow into my ear



(c) 16 Apr 1993

byron elbows

(mail to brian@cs.ucla.edu)

--