Nominated for the Rhysling Award…
Beneath grey spires
Sits a tiny pub of chalk-stone walls,
Dry wooden posts made marble pillars,
Shelves with bottles, green and brown,
Tweed suits, sweaters and ties.
There I sit,
And with my chums, Jack and John,
Dwindling stems of warm thick beer,
John, as always, with a pipe,
Words swim of silent shores
Found nowhere but paper and that wandering eye,
Sworn to re-forge the king's sword,
And ride behind the lion's mane.
Jack and John become their creations
And energy shifts from the open mouth
Into the imagination--where the white wizard
withers to a foul-eyed witch, fading back into pale shadows:
a green-cloaked ranger smoking no longer sweet vanilla
but pine and campfire.
Iron lamps dim with weary fuel,
As songs fade at evening's end,
Where a pearl homeward horse and sleigh await,
That none but Jack and John might ride.
Away they fly:
Lost in a moonless mist,
Me, still behind.
Publication History:
- Mythic Delirium (no link available)
- Rhysling Anthology (no link available)