(i) The Emperor



Standing in the space that holds the silent lace of night

away from you

You think that you can hold the searing, molten gold between

your fingers ...

But it slips through, tearing tendons as it goes,

exposing the white of a knuckle ...

flesh-and-metal forming letters in the mould.



Cradling your gun, after choosing the ones you think should die -

Lying on the hill ... crawling over the windowsill into your

living-room

They stare out, glass-eyed aimless heads,

bodies torn by vultures ..

you are the man whose hands are rank with the smell of death.

Saviour of the Fallen, Protector of the Weak,

Friend of the Tall Ones, Keeper of the Peace ...

Ah, but it is the only way you know .....



Looking out to sea, a flattened plane of weeds which bear no living

You crush life in your fist as your heart is kissed by the lips of death

Ghosts betray you, ghosts betray you,

in the night they steal your eye

from its socket ...

and the ball hangs fallen on your cheek.

Complaining tongues are stilled; a thousand mouths are filled

with rusting metal.

Your face a shade of green; somehow you try to speak through all the garbage in your mouth

But it won't come out, and you cannot frame the words

as your stepson

throws your fame into the flames and you are burned.

Saviour of the Fallen, Protector of the Weak,

Friend of the Tall Ones, Keeper of the Peace.

Ah, but it is the only way you know ..........