Turning the corners / dark world
god says today I will make a mute
and tomorrow I will make a king
while planets spin and circle and trine
earthly dynasties and alliances fall in disgrace and ruin
then realign
the kings’ astronomer traces the oppositions and alignments
unconsciously touches the soft of his nape, in silence
watches as mars slows and pauses, then reverses
as if on queue, the whole world snarls
and goes gladly off to war in the provinces
the princess is taken from her hidden realm
smuggled surreptitiously under reckless plot
suffers fools and indignities. Sees beauty entangled with ugliness
feels the sting of peasantry and gravel for the first
on her soft and lovely virgin, white soles
she thirsts for water and hungers for color
is rewarded with random apportionments of debasement and irony
her soul pains to sing a song of honor and grace
something from somewhere other than this place
if she had only bothered to learn the words
somewhere opposite this sorrowful earth, bathed in so many greys,
mossy greens, hopelessness and darkness. a diametric to the sun
effortless, amidst a black sea of profanity and malice
china-white clouds bring sweet, spring rains, refract in buttery, golden hues
the ephemeral pleasures of the floating world, for which she will now forever be unfit
distilling meaning in the face of defeat
a princess longs but loses her lovely head
one must steel themselves for deceit
what is that expression so foreign
to men who work and live and toil
on the face of the dead and vanquished
one can discern the corners turn
peace, transcendence, and the hint of a smile
inspired by akira kurosawa’s ‘hidden fortress’
dark muse 