Best Architrave Poems
5. Murasame’s Story Concludes
("Noh" is an ancient Japanese style of
drama, broadly similar to Elizabethan
tragedy. "The Wind in the Pines" is
my version of a well-known Noh play.)
MATSUKAZE & MURASAME
(chanting in harmony)
Pine wind, and autumn rain,
women, sorrow: men, disdain!
MURASAME
As men are ready to play games,
poets are keen to give names.
He said I was the moon in wane,
so he named me after the autumn rain.
My sister's singing is divine,
and he likened her to the wind in the pines.
MATSUKAZE & MURASAME
(chanting in harmony)
Pine wind, and autumn rain,
woman in love, woman insane!
MURASAME
He turned our rice water into milk.
Our fustian gowns became silk.
Three summers we passed, in sensual bliss,
and now we are reduced to this -
ladling brine on a moonlit shore,
never to see our lover more.
MATSUKAZE & MURASAME
(chanting in harmony)
Pine wind and autumn rain,
prisoners in the moon's domain!
MURUSAME
Where humans gather, sickness thrives,
diseases claim uncountable lives.
Returning to the Imperial Court,
Yukihira selfishly sought
his own lettered architrave,
but found instead a common grave.
MATSUKAZE & MURASAME
(chanting in harmony)
Pine wind and autumn rain,
he will not come back again.
MURASAME
Two keepsakes, which we still hold dear -
my sister has them, brings them here -
a man's cloak and a court cap:
leather band, and understrap:
with reverence, see, she gathers them close:
to us, they are his living ghosts.
MATSUKAZE & MURASAME
(chanting in harmony)
Pine wind and autumn rain,
ghosts we are, and must remain!
The singer sang from beyond the grave,*
Or in his grave, to be true.
His voice reached up to the architrave
And vibrated in every pew.
The vicar called on the choir to sing
As loud as loud they could.
But the voice had an even louder ring
Sending quivers down the rood.
Oh Lord, they sang, oh mighty God,
Gloria in excelsis deo.
But the singer sang of life’s hard rod
And of Hell's undying blow.
The women looked up the pillars tall,
While big-eyed children cried.
The singer had them in his thrall,
But was not to be descried.
The vicar read his sermon out,
As if proclaiming from the mount.
The singer responded with a voice so stout,
He sang of fear’s rich fount.
The congregation lost relation
To the good man’s godly word.
They stood in helpless trepidation,
Their souls so far disturbed.
The church’s doors swung open wide,
To a cascade of chattering leaves;
The screams and panic and terror inside
Shook the church to its very eaves.
And then, oh then, oh horror pure,
The spectre appeared at the door.
His bloodied hair, his sombre allure,
Chilled the living to the core.
The vicar clutched up bible and ran
Through a hidden door to the side,
The singer opened his cloak like a fan
And wrapped all the children inside.
The women bemoaned this cruellest loss,
They wailed to the crucified Christ.
But bound and weak and nailed as he was,
There was nothing he could do.
* This Poem should be read in conjunction with 'The Pauper's Grave'
The footman, in impeccable white hose
and pigtailed wig, halts five yards off, and bows.
An under-secretary, in the throes
of studying the Lombard Ruse, allows
the silent slippered servant to slide near.
A silver salver bears a folded note.
He picks it up. Fine ivory veneer
reflects the silver buttons of his coat.
The older man is quiet as the grave,
and just as still. He contemplates the board.
As if they were the marble architrave,
both footman and official are ignored.
Just then, the boy picks up his knight
and moves it forward, capturing a pawn.
Here in the Gloriette, warm candlelight:
beyond the window, evening-shrouded lawn.
“Your Highness has the art,” the old man says,
and sits back in his chair. The tartan pile
of blanket shrouds his knees. His face betrays
the merest specter of a subtle smile.
Prince Klemens Wenzel Furst Von Metternich
enjoys the eight-year-old’s euphoria.
“You’ll make a mighty monarch, naturlich.”
His blanket slips (a gift from Queen Victoria).
The chance the Under-Secretary sought!
He coughs and tugs politely at his cuff.
“The note, Your Highness, which the footman brought …”
It’s almost imperceptible, the Prince’s huff.
“It seems that Talleyrand – well – he is dead.
Two nights ago. Near Tours. Chezal-Benoit.”
The old man grunts. “We haven’t been misled?
He died? I wonder what he meant by that.”
Alone within emotional wilderness
(mine) biding leisure time
January 19th, 2020
without reason nor rhyme,
yet woke with sublime
pained acute awareness,
how once prime
merrily rightful autochthonous occupants
their land stole equivalent value
not much more'n dime.
Simple man dwells admiring
mother nature's architrave
home of the free land of the brave
usurped with exacting vengeance
aboriginal happy hunting grounds,
yours truly cloistered within man cave
small medium at large eremite doth crave
indigenous tribes Europeans
did wantonly annihilate
and/or make deprave
viciously slaughtering Native Americans
nsync brutality wrecking
their idyllic enclave
foreigners forcibly corralling
subsequently did enslave
ruthlessly employing sacrilegious travesty
scattered smite stricken survivors
formidable invaders (countless
demoniacal explorers) rendered desolate
pristine unbroken woodland
deceit, guile, iniquitous
jawboning flavor flav,
whether or not ancestors (mine)
even tangentially linkedin
egregious mockery, travesty
yours truly never forgave
horrendous genocide early settlers
wrought onto indigenous peoples
hoodwinked, notoriously
thrashed "noble savage"
feigning burying hatchet until
last proud redman buried in his grave.
Similar saga countless instances played across
four corners of globe,
white man self anointed himself boss
subsequently slaying innocent lives
all in name of Christ crucified on cross
denying original rightful inhabitants
their preexisting misnamed
new found lands
invaders justified execrable massacres
on par with clearing away dross
trumpeting art of the deal (albeit) gross
and unfair, whereat decimated loss
lovely bones long since
covered over with moss.
"Just get your titles, stick to study, son,"
she used to say, "no matter what it takes."
She saw me as the family's Chosen One,
escaping that conveyor-belt of cakes.
When I got home, she'd be already gone
("If only for your future children's sakes!")
the hairnet and the overalls to don,
to start the night shift, down at Bettabakes.
The belt would grind and drone (it never stopped),
conveying cupcakes, candy caramel,
vanilla-flavored, sugared, cherry-topped,
towards Goods Outward's gaping mouth of hell.
This sluggish river she'd have gladly swapped
for Acheron or Lethe, switched the smell
of almond paste for brimstone (could she opt
for somewhere far less tedious to dwell).
And me? I got degrees, up to my ears,
steered clear of Bettabakes, at least. Became
a lawyer and a teacher, one who steers
the kayak of his soul down much the same
dull river as his mother, but my weirs
are bigger. "National", you name the game?
"American"? It's baseball. Many beers
ago, I ceased to think in terms of fame
or fortune. Work's just work, and must be borne.
From graduation to the grinning grave
it sweeps us, slowly, down a valley worn
by those conveyed before us. Each new wave
of fancy fudges sets out, feeling scorn
for docile drudges, but winds up enslaved.
Our only way is onward, just like pawns,
towards Goods Outward's yawning architrave.
As counsel for defense I saw them pass.
It mattered little if they roared, or knelt
in supplication. Since all flesh is grass,
we have no choice. We play the hand we're dealt.
And now I watch each earnest, eager class
of youngsters, see their fine illusions melt:
they merge into one nameless toiling mass,
conveyed towards oblivion by The Belt.