The Task
A LOATHSOME MAN once bound himself
in hopes of wealth beyond compare.
Did he, in all but misery then
realise his hands left bare.
So, flinging fire into hell
he spat into the whirling tide
to gift what little he had seen
to others of his kind.
Again he writhed against the rock,
again against the beaten mast,
again still bare by pillars held,
again the world he craved was soft.
So beautiful beyond his arms and
naked should it be but fleeing
music to his battered heart.
Dull beating rage.
Wretched hand was fist on high
awaiting proud applause to rain,
would that this key opened their eyes.
He gave his trade a simple name.
Flowers wilted by his work,
colours turned away and sighed.
Teeming springs to quench his iron,
lost was all the lush and dying.
But life there still was to be found,
mercilessly born apart
as was the artist from his muse,
to gaze and long and reproduce.
The son cannot but due be told
the father’s ship will never dock
and he, the fruit, was born at sea
the stowaway, the slaver’s luck.
The ripe are shaken in their youth,
remember tastes of richer days?
Let him remember glimpses yet, to
guide him through his growing pains.
Steady grinds the mill of life, oh
steady bears the father’s weight, for
every moon a son is born, and
every moon a father made.
A wicked man once knew his fate of
letters few will read aloud.
He never spoke a single word
despite the urge.
A simple but a fretting soul,
wary of recurring doubt
and yet an undeterred fighter
reeling drunken from the bout.
Again his friends were summer fawn,
again the killing frost returned,
again he built his castle well,
again to see it fall he yearned.
Had he been driftwood on the stream,
a mound of soot discovered crying, or
crawling from a tomb denied,
a ripple on the cosmic tide;
Now he stiffened into pearl,
a jewel perhaps, to gather up.
Even then his task unerring
whisked him off to shores untouched.
The gold he smote,
crown he struck by countless blows,
craft he fashioned for his gods,
an island was his silken robe.
Careening into open night
to drink and fight with twilight rage and
though his mornings bring regret,
these parts, he knows, his sun will set.
Salt of life that comes with age his
white-washed walls, they hold at length.
An evil man, a weak charade,
attentive to his last hurrah.
Should he promise you, away,
to soon be close again, do not
break the scent of chance, the trace,
keep on arriving, talk your shop.
It was a number of decrees
that starve him on the cusp of feed,
and taught and winded see him keen
to work his tether free.
