3.6 All the King’s Horses

Argument: in which a metaphorical tunnel is followed and the King reappears prior to the disappearance of Sir Lathynarn.

A tunnel.

The floor is cobbled – brick and monoblock herringboned to infinity, sunken where the workmen knew a teabreak or two; puddle in those spots where the workmen spilled a teacup or two.

The ceiling is light – white painted cumulus, a single yellow bulb, an impasto shadow of a fasting flock of birds; all swaying slightly to the angles and to the angels topping off the cloudy architecture.

The walls are faces – the eyes and nylon noses of faces with bastard flags and rubber armed applause; the walls move and sing in hallucinations of the innertube of the tunnel.

Behind – just an emptiness to the beginning all straight and banal.

Ahead – less an emptiness than the back of the parade that is powered on empty.

And here in the centre, Sir Lathynarn running – struggling to the end with myself by his side.

***

We followed the Parade – it dropped its crap to the ground, its flyers and its autographs ripped and torn to the ground, its odd shoes and ripped hair torn to the ground.

“Some fame
and some madness
in the tunnel of crowding,
these barriers keep us
safe from danger.

“Danger
that a crowd could
love me in imagination
and perpetuity,
eternity.”

We stumbled, fell, picked up and ran on.

How long for? for long enough to keep the space dividing the Parade and ourselves a constant one – their speed matched our speed, so we seemed as invariable as the other.

The crowd, the audience as invariable as ever.

“Lathy,
can you hear her?
That one lady’s rounding applause?
I cannot hear a thing
beyond our boots…”

He ignored me for listening too hard.

On and on, and turning and tunnelling – where did the tunnel aim to? shot through the city, the city streets disguised by the tunnel run through it, the crowd assigned to it and the cheers that rose from it.

What could I remember of the city we had left that lifetime before? where was the Cage and where Sick Brian? the Chessmaster… remember? what was his face? did I ever know his face? where the cold of the chessboard was that I came from?

I knew none of it anymore.
I knew only the step
I had stepped before
the one I now took…

***

HALT!

The Parade with its millipedish trundle stopped and we heard the unclanking of a grand metal handle – some collapse of pressure in the distance like a boulder, shunted by a thousand knightly shoulders, crushing an acorn in its way.

We caught up with the last, we were a part of the Parade, we waited with them for commands and rubbed our nervous hands on the metal of the knights’ armour... rusted handprints where Lathy and me had nerved them, unnerving ourselves.

He shooshed me, I shoosed myself – we walked slowly forward through the doorway, into the King’s Hall – all the majesty of kinghood painted on ceiling panels above – the life of the King, his slaughtering of children, his raping of corpses, his looting of the women who had protected him most – what a King he was that he should celebrate himself with the art of atrocity.

We gathered in lines, in silence, in awe of the King – dear Famous King with his Mistress Fame.

The silence grew, the King on his throne, the gold singing its light to the angles, hidden in the shadows of rubied corners.

He spoke:

“Knights – here
are my orders:
be kindly, good; then honesty
will create Future Of
Celebrity.

“For Fame
is all – what coins
can buy you brief adulation
from your grim tomorrows?
None I tell you.

“Do all
you can to be.
Do all you can to be a star,
a universe of Knight.
Known beyond sight.

“You, Sir

[… he pointed to a Silver One…]

could be greater
if you were to proclaim your love
for all the audience
demand of you.

“Loudness
of Audience –
do as they wish – hear them, outside
wanting to bite your flesh
in heathen light.

“Pity
only those fools
who don’t wish for adulation,
who only fish for coins
to feed themselves.”

But then the King had to stop:

BEEP! went Lathy’s watch – his false, futuristic digital – the alarm set for disturbance and disturb the King’s sense it did – all eyes shot their sparrows at Lathy, hatred in the air.

BEEP! what was I to do now? I hid behind Lathy – away from the glare of the King, but harder now as I stood taller than my master.

BEEP! struck the tin of knights, the foil of visors, the painted card of shields arrayed within the hall.

BEEP! echoed in the ears of the painted martyrs the King had slaughtered to make a victory of his own.

BEEP! BEEP! the sound hit the eyes, punched the guts and the balls of every ball and gut within the thin, thin, fabric and paintshop walls.

And as Lathy felt for the watch button, the balcony spotlight buttoned him to the centre of the hall.

“Wee boy…
How very dare
you interrupt my bastard speech
to these not-quite great men
in infancy?

“You’re no
new knight of mine.
An impostor? Independent
of them all and my court –
stranger to us?

“Just who
the fuck are you?
Why the bastard noise and riot
from you, you little boy?
Say who you are.”

Lathy stepped forward, the watch now silenced and his voice now loaded:

“I am
Sir Lathynarn –
your Knight of the Winter Chessboard,
champion in that war
and now hero.

“I have
travelled from here
to there, fought fights with your morals
and won them, and won them
well and proper.

“Service
to your Kinghood

[…I prodded him, he shrugged me off…]

my one obsession on my way
to being a true knight,
a knight of GOOD.”

Sir Lathynarn, the Half-height Knight, bowed deep and scraped a nostril to the floor.

“Cunt-faced
fuckin’ midget.
I’ve never seen your fuckjaws squeak
so much as ‘haw’ to me.
Piss off home now!”

Lathynarn took a step forward, small step, one step – he remained on his square, on his circle of light, and hesitated.

[But then I peeked around him and saw, behind the throne, Sick Brian peeking back at me – he held thumb and finger to his lips and ear and mouthed phone me.]

“You don’t

[… squeaked Lathy to the King…]

remember me?
You haven’t even forgotten
to forget poor wee me,
poor me… oh me…”

The King’s Wizard stepped up the throne and whispered a speech in the Royal Ear – intent, in quiet, all the hall stared at them – the Wizard retired to the shadows and Sick Brian hid beneath the throne.

“Small man

[… the King said…]

my Wizard spoke
and reminded me of chessgames
where promotion led to
a forged knighthood.

“Listen –
hwaet, and other
starts to things to say at these times.
I fight against myself
in chessgames.

“No names,
no enemies.
No more reason for games to me
than boredom, solitaire
in challenging.

“Defeat
and your knighthood
was no winning, no promotion.
Just one bored winter’s day
in Fuckalot.

“Go now,
beat it – vanish.
I never knighted you in war,
nor peace but in joking.
You are no knight.”

You are no knight, you are no knight, you are no knight…

If Lathynarn, plain Lathynarn, were in possession of a psychology I would attempt to write it for him – how he cried, how he fought, how he collapsed and took his fists to the air, to the throne and to the King – but he has none, he has none, he has none.

He was no knight.

“Lathy,
can you hear her?
That one lady’s rounding applause?
I cannot hear a thing
beyond your heart…”

[And the camera pulls out, up to a hole in the panel in which the King crushes an enemy’s face in his horse’s shit – and looking down we see, light still illuminating, one Lathynarn broken amongst all the King’s horses and all the King’s men.]




prev - 3.5 The Parade of Knights of Variable Heights
next -

3.5 The Parade of Knights of Variable Heights

Argument: Falling and jumping to flowers and a parade of ironclad knights.

A window frame of sandstone, solid thick and thuggish against the blue sky with tower blocks and glass and curved steel amplifying the crowd noise below.

Looking down…

Cheer! cheer! the crowd and the parade, four hundred million voices aloud and heaven made beat make the drum of the sky and the skin of the eye throb with the noise of the crowd cry, hooraying and holler… what a riot they make. Cheer! cheer! the flags are vaulting the heads on the wind, and they bird-like arrest the twigs and pinned-up twine and rope, and ropes supporting the held-up banners twittering, reporting all the riot they make. Cheer! cheer! the crowd are smiling, the crowd are asking the paraded for their lives - take our meal, our forks and knives, the bones you need to live, here, take what we give in the riot we make. Cheer! cheer! the paraded are knights of uncertain heights – from noses to heights, they confuse the matter so , but they marched in a line, down the street, lined by crowds on both sides, in stereo.

“Lathy!

[… I whispered…]

“look at them all,
they’re a thousand strong in armour!
So many, so armoured,
so short and tall.

“Could we –
I mean – should we
follow and place ourselves amongst
the cheer they listen to
their great applause?”

He waved me quiet – came towards the window, curled a hand to an ear:

“Listen!
Closer and through
the bombs care applause of the crowd…
can you hear her sweet hands
clap off the walls?

“Strip out
the audience –
I can hear her two clapping hands
one-two-three-four, they clap
to start again.

“I hear
her, I hear her,
I hear her hands and suddenly
I know my fate’s to fall
down there, to her.”

Lathy descended to his dream…

I knocked him, took a shoulder and shook some sense and woke him.

“We’ll fall

[… he said…]

“and join them all
to follow their path to meet her.
We’ll fall and land so safe
and sound as all.”

Julia laughed, and Cyrano too – I looked down to the ten thousand feet below us.

Quixana, I thought, you look so sad, so thesauresed and glum – I go with a knight, a squire does his duty to follow his master throughout a city by jumping from windows and scanning the globe and entering forests and coming to an end.

“This will
be our final,
our last, our post-penultimate
meeting with you, Don Qué,
my favourite.

“Farewell
Don Cyrano!
Farewell, dear noseless Julia!
The parade is calling
like distant bells.”

We fell – did Cyrano push me? did Julia push Lathy? laughter pushed us and laughter buoyed us, an updraft of good cheer, a blast of applause; the flag-wave explosions kept gravity a fool for wanting us so much.

***

There’s nothing like the sun on a crowd in celebration – it brings them up and holds them at the level of the moon… lunation, lunation and not a moment too soon.

And what madness makes a madman jump? what madness makes a madman? three letters, small, and bound to grow as the question is considered…

Reconsidering our fall as jump as push, we dusted ourselves and admired the view.

***

“Suppose
she thought of me
when I clattered to the bedroom
when I fell on the floor
and then whistled?

“My tune
was quite happy,
my knees only bruised in places,
my bones only shattered
on their faces.”

I coughed and reminded him on where we now were – standing in tickertape winding high at the knees, stranded in confetti watching the back of the queue of knights, of knights of variable heights – some short, some tall, some shrinking from view.

A woman of the crowd threw a flower my way, four hundred others followed and we sunk beneath the blooms – quite joyful, no? the scent of them all, the petals of them all.

She shouted at us:

“Take this!
And another!
There’s flowers aplenty ‘round here.
Carnations and roses,
nasturtiums too.”

We struggled out of the weight – had we shrunk to be buried in four-billion strong a storm of botanics and scents?

“Why jump

[… she continued…]

to the parade
from your towerview? Your window
on what gloried below
in noise and green.

“Never
would anyone
lose a window seat like that one
unless they were madmen
or pushed obscene.”

Lathy stood up, picked a rose from his elbow, blew a tansy from his wrist and ran away.

“Wait up!
Wait – I’m coming
to find you wherever you’re seen,
following behind you
and inbetween.”

We came to the back of the parade – what knights could I see?

One dwarf knight beating his battered tin drum; another slapping himself with a thumb – forefinger raised and battering on; a suit of armour, empty and useless it seemed, but walking and talking and being manlike it seemed, walking free of human muscles; and there, a knight with wax-formed wings, a father crying for some absentee; and a flaming knight interior with fire leaking from his eyes, a redness on his fingernails, his gauntlets red as skies; one scarecrow knight, one Spartan; one harpist throwing a coat over his head; a clown knight, noseless clowning scarily; some growing; some owing their presence to a memory; some remembered and nameless, some nameful and shamed.

“Are you
a knight like them?
Some grow before us, inches tall –
and others are shrinking
at the applause.”

Lathynarn, Sir Lathynarn, turned and blazed at me:

“Applause
for this parade
means nothing – they applaud the sun
on cloudy days, and cloud
on sunny ones.

“They clap
for near nothing
save themselves and their pirate roar,
like a thief of their own
entertainment.

“Pay nowt
for their offers
and I shall then be rewarded
with stature of my own –
an own-height-knight.”

We heard singing from the parade – should we learn their song?

“There’s a hole down where
all the feet go, there
the legs, beware
the hole – you shrink
and are left to sink
in the black deep ink
of the hole-y air.

“There’s a box up high
where our heads lie
swallowed by sky
and the hum of bees
sting and tease
around the lost faces
of those actors and I.

“There’s an absence in
the brains of men
forgotten as a sin
of frogs en masse
in an underpass
‘til then, at last,
the lights begin.

“There’s a door without
a window – shout! shout!
the windows out
of the wooden frame
with absent aim
of absent fame
of absent delight.”

Keep walking and follow – and we might one day learn the song.



prev - 3.4 About noses
next - 3.6 All the King's Horses

3.4 About Noses

Argument: In which three knights sing about noses and what they can mean for the world.

Up the stairs and up the stairs and up the stairs we go – shedding depth and music hall appeals ten miles below.

“The song
is getting low –
the notes and catching melody,
toe tap of tapping shoes
and song sung blues.”

And up the stairs, go up and feel the air thin and thinner, still and stiller, than the air at the bottom of the stairs; and up – yes, up! – banal repetition going on and on – repeat once more, goes on and on… how far did we climb and need anyone care? the steps took their time to deliver us there.

A door stopped us – oak? pine? formica topped and artificial? a handle made of whale-bone, of plastic-wrap, of sheer, bold gold to block our way and lock us out.

“What now?
Are we stopping
at this abundant barrier
which delays the story
for weeks, for months?”

Heave-to… we shouldered the door like we did the crowds that had blocked our way all those clouds and rains ago.

“Force it!
Push and solid,
take the pain the door throws at you
as enthusiasm
forced upon it.”

With a one, a two, a thud upon the door and a one, a two, a crash upon the door we burst – a balloon! – through the ripping surface, he first and heading for the floor with the force of an unwelcome entry.

But who’s here? who’s here? what’s this in this room?

I saw a window with clouds, curtains, curtains unwound rewound, near-funeral shrouds; a striped sunlit sound on the roofs of the city; a bird-flight, half-lit, shadowed, more's-the-pity; bare floor, wooden floor; the ripping splinters of a broken door; a table, chairs, three knights a-sitting; three knights at dinner, in armour, fork and knife a-cutting; one chicken between them, cooked, deconstructed, flesh and fowl, the parson’s nose reconstructed and fed sharing to all.

“But who,
what, and aren’t you?
No… but wait! and still in little
one-off bits and thoughtless
thoughts, wait!, and oh...”

Yes, by some miracle, some accident, look here: it was metal-knight, mechanical, cogs’n’gears Quixana!

“Ah, wait!

[… said he…]

Am I seeing
Sir Lathynarn Lilliputian?
The small one and his squire
come through this door

“to find
myself, my friends,
my fellow knights in waiting for
the food to stop, party
to begin – Oh!

“Sir Dwarf,
greetings! Return
your face and form so completely
to my storyville view
I tell so neatly

“and slow
with great pauses.
The causes of your return here –
complicated? unknown?
simple as sin?”

Lathynarn smiled at his mechanical speech – puffed up, dropped his all.

“Metal
knight, Don Qué –
you carry my narrative arc
rainbow-like, untouching
the ground or sky.

“But who,
if I may ask,

[…asked Lathy, looking over…]

are your guests, your visitors here?
Do they move on a plot?
Or above it?”

[But, pause for a moment - before this, let me sing a sad song for Quixana:

Quixana! Quixana!
welcome back to the tale
with your metal face and fantasy
steel surfaces and mind.
And still and still and what
is that mystery you hold
before your face
do you remember?
that foam red nose.
But he will not speak
about the fake and facaded
red extension upon
his existing beak.

He kept his nose covered... remember this.]

Knight One sat suave, what panache!, his hat a-flopping by his side, his moustache twirled beneath that large surprise.

“My friend,

[… quoth Quixana…]

Sir Cyrano.
Note his extraordinary
nose of which we do not
natter, unless,

“of course
he would do so -
and then he’d chatter forever
and spit-and-spray splatter
on its base.”

Sir Cyrano nodded towards us – his nose so long I could feel its wave poke the air around my own.

Knight Two sat straight, autistically so – square paper underneath his plate, an abacus to rest a fork upon, a swirl of equations by his Gallic elbow, a hum, a violin, a suggestion of a song.

“My friend

[… quoth Quixana…]

Sir Julia.
Do not startle when he removes
his nose mask, which he may,
for beneath it

“is hid
one nose removed,
one absent, one gash, a horror
of filmic noselessness
to startle you.”

And Sir Julia smiled, his leather patch sweating, streaming into splattered chicken juices - the feast continued with smiles and nods at the two new guests.

Lathy pulled himself and asked:

“Honour
is mine to meet
my fellow soldiers, but have you
heard a damsel clapping
from beneath you?

"My quest
is now certain -
to find Dear Dame Celebrity
whose clapping and tapping
of hands is pure__"

I stepped forward - this would not do; he could not let the noses lie - what were these knights, and what could they tell us?

"Jesus,
Lathy - listen
to yourself less and study them.
Something needs said right now
that we must hear.

"Sir Qui,

[... I turned to them...]

my other Lords
in your armour and soldiery
tell us about noses.
Sing us your songs."

I did not look at Lathynarn. I looked only to the window.

Sir Julia stood up and sang:

“Unrequired, never needed –
the nostrils are divinity
in purpose, not in form,
in form, a falsehood!

“A reduction of the nose
revelation of truth
true calling, true life
true, knights, true-true.

“I have limited mine
I have shortened it
you see it – flat!
Flat Julia

“I have
no__”


Sir Cyrano hushed him - shoosh and calm!

“Life! a feast of snot of ages
dripping on your schoolboy pages
page of honour while maid of none
the snot reveals a path now run

“and snot drips down the Nose Royale
unlike the nose-quite-minimal –
it gushes forth to cover lands
to be mopped-up by others’ hands.

“My nose guides the path my snot takes
from childhood to the life that death takes
one step more – the longer nose shows
that life is a snot trail that grows and grows
and grows and grows and grows
from your snot covered fingers
to the tip of my nose.”

We all cried a little, I believe - except Lathy, I did not want to look at his eyes.

Quixana sang:

“My song is a bastardform
my nose hidden from view
and all its voice and song
not meant for you.

“'Repent', they say,
'from mysterious ways
show your nose
beneath the nose
that covers the nose
in its clownish way.'”

Vain Lathy had seen his mirrored nose five hundred times – in shattered glasses and laketops, in dreams, imaginations and fadings – his all, it would be true – like Julia’s (flattish), like Cyrano’s (brutish), though just somewhere inbetween.

But before Lathy could answer - I felt his chest rise to speak and sing his unjustifiable nose - a cheer shouted up from the window – a cheer, a festival, the bunting flew-up, flapped against the window frame – the parade had started.


prev - 3.3 Lathy in the Underworld
next -

3.3 Lathy in the Underworld

Argument: Death is averted, silence is encountered and the show, oh yes, it must go on.

Don’t turn to the dark, Sir Lathynarn! – it is always dark with the lights off and the black high in amplitude, intensity and inkiness – climb those stairs and turn not back, reach not out, sing not loud, unknot proud the tangle you’ve avoided and dismissed – be certain, moral and aware of the smoke and daggers in this criminal air.

She was behind and clapped each footstep but – be truthful – you had never seen nor requested proof; she clap-clapped a hand with tut-tut of tongue unseen, unfelt and always there behind you.

Climb the steps and be unflawed – which is not perfect – be lantern-jawed and chew determination, spitting out the doubt that she walks behind…

***

It was all a joke of course.

Trigger pull and CLAP! from them all – itchy fingers and all their faces – Troll-And-Troll-By; Troll Hazard of Trace; Chafe Litter; Obloquium; Rince Pytcher; Choplogyke; etc. – all their faces burst, laughing – a purple smell of clove smoke from toy guns and cap guns.

I joined in, knowing the larks of terror that Lathy could not comprehend (an inkling, maybe, of how it will end…)

They, the guffawing mass of villainy and humour, came by, hugged us, took us in their arms and high up we soared and paraded with cheers – their bundles to a cavern, they insisted, directly under the throne of that fool of a King, buffoon of a King, so soon to meet the King above us.

“A laugh?
What a laughter!
Hilarity, quite jocular
and ending in applause
for noble me!”

Fear to pride
misplaced, forgotten
both times perhaps
at the sound
and the roar
and the riot
of those claps.

“Thank you

[… he smiled, he smiled! …]

thank you, people
and friends for accepting myself
and my squire-in-waiting
into your group.”

[In waiting for what? what did he mean? waiting inbetween the what and what?]

“And now

[… he continued…]

you may help me.
I need the way onwards and up
to find Dear Fame and sup
her fame-filled cup.

“Applause –
I heard applause
from high windows above the Walls
and am hunting the sound
and clapping hands.

“But two –
only two hands
clapping in a womanly way
slapping each together
so, oh... gently.

“Soft hands,
long finger strokes
against her longer finger strokes
of her opposite hand
that sound their clap.

“Help me
find this Lady
dear, what she offers out to me –
fame and sweet, sweet and dear
celebrity…”

Look around – I looked around – some cavern, some sewer – naturally man-made or made to be natural – it echoes with O O O that laughing ragtime green and brown and grey array of the villains who aimed their guns – so empty, quaint and pointless – at Lathynarn and me.

They looked and looked and looked and looked… and looked and looked and looked.

Looking, some wiser man proclaimed, signs a face to the future, a contract to be shredded and threaded through the weave of life – looking, he proclaimed, was a fabric in waiting and all those looking faces wove their carpet before us in a silence.

“No hope
here to listen
and take advice from these villains
and murd’rous ruffians
all a-plenty.

“No-one
will speak to us.
No-one, not one, nothing from them
to hear in us and sing
nor whisper down.”

Shhh… shhh… quiet – pull back the camera and see us all shrink – a spider’s eye view from the rooftop and web – all calm, all quiet and calm.

“Lathy

[… I whispered in the silence…]

the show can’t stop
when there’s an obstacle in front
of ourselves and the tops
won’t budge from jars.

“The show –
pssst! whisper it! –
the show must start, go on, with lights
and cameras, music
and dancing girls!

“We can’t
just stop and halt
and obstruct ourselves from action
because some won’t speak
the words we say.

“Movement –
music – sing! dance!
Let’s beat our drummerboy way out
and shout hallelujah!
come! be happy!”

The orchestra struck up the overture, the curtain quivered and an entrance was promised – quick! here! – a lyre was flung to Lathy’s open hands - the chorus line kicked high steps to the cavern top, deep down in this hole they sang out in this music shop their rattle and hum, their rhythm and soukous, their loose-loose hips and their curtain-quivering thighs - all lights, all song, all entertainment for all!

"Sing, sing, Sir Lathynarn sing
take the lyre up under your wing
and strum and strum and strum
each harping, tortoise string!"

Then stop and then such an accident for the music to begin at the point of impasse – a darkness and a silence grew around him, and the spotlight, limelight, centrelight and leading man delight lit up the cavern we walked through.

Such accident, such happenstance.

Lathy sang:

“Happenstance-Orpheus plays upon his lyre
and the string of fire burns the otter
the string of water drowns the bear
the string of air lifts the brown turf
from beneath the lions before the earth-
string shatters the ground around there.”

Such sad, such joy and the way the women sigh – what matinee idolism Sir Lathynarn displays as he strums and hums and plays his way through this Hell, this Underworld, this Diss his Orpheus swims through, lies through, acts through to kiss___.

Applause.

One short hand of applause in congratulation and warning – stage left lit up, a flight of stairs – go upwards, calling, asking itself for a foot, two feet, a knight in armour, brave, to climb them.

The applause sang back at him:

“Don’t turn to the dark,
Sir Lathynarn! –
it is always dark
with the lights off
and the black high
in amplitude,
intensity and inkiness –
climb those stairs and turn not back,
reach not out,
sing not loud,
unknot proud the tangle
you’ve avoided and dismissed –
be certain, moral and aware
of the smoke and daggers
in this criminal air.”

She was behind and clapped each footstep but – be truthful – you had never seen nor requested proof; she clap-clapped a hand with tut-tut of tongue unseen, unfelt and always there behind you.

Climb the steps and be unflawed – which is not perfect – be lantern-jawed and chew determination, spitting out the doubt that she walks behind…






prev - 3.2 Down, down, down
next - 3.4 About Noses

3.2 Down, down, down

Argument: a trip snuck under the walls to the smell of shit and a line of faces.

We snuck under the walls and snuck ourselves to the tunnel – this funnel to our way in and under passing guards and their barriers, villains and their worriers and on and down, in, over and up to the city.

“What will
become of me?
When will the beaks drop off the birds?
When will I be more than
rollicking words?

“Which way
can I travel?
Six months a continental shift
from A to B to see
the greyness lift…

“Who will
I meet and know
beyond a knowledge of their name?
Who will I contend with
in lowly fame?

“Who can
I half-fully
be and become and be right now
and tomorrow and then
fall in the slough?”

***

We ran to the left – or was it right? – and walked the straight line of the wall we knew curved in our spirit and stroll along the solid, great and grey-filled wall.

“Lathy

[…I asked…]

where are we bound?
This is such a straight barrier
I cannot imagine
a change in ground?”

And then a sewer with burst opening – bars spread sluttish to let us in – we crawled to the stinking flood and floating shit and sodden stoor the sewer gave out.

“Wait up!
What about them:
the ponies, the camels and men
we’ve left with our treasures?
What about them?”

“Shoosh, boy.
Treasure is means
to end only; our arrival
spent more limitless cash
than I could buy.”

***

Give or take three years, it had been four years eight months two days since Lathy had removed his armour – I saw him as green iron, green steel, green reflection on the face that snuck through the metal, the green bronze and mossy titanium – but then, but then…

No giant but I
towered over him –
his shrinking armlets
scrawled and so formless
and leglets sparrow
shaped, and childlike skin
with no blemish but
the armour chafing
wounds and pressure sores.

As such – the novelty in removing his limbs – arms, legs and thorax, head and feet – amused me no end.

“Quiet
you halfwit you
and take my breastplate safely
through this open sewer
and block your nose.”

Shit covered Lathy and me, squeezed through the drain and effortlessly dragged what might have remained on the other side.

“Now then –
what then? what next?
Where do we go but nowhere
slowly in the sewer
system and maze.”

“Follow.

Follow. Listen.

for the clank of armour battered

off these shitty sidings

and old brickwork.”

***

We had snuck under the Castle Walls, deep beneath the topmost tower and walked the ground of this Underground – we passed the beggars and the cokefiends, the dealers’ hats and conmen’s purses filled with the purses they’d snipped from the goodmen – good and clipped of pronunciation.

“We’ll find
those clapping hands
and listen to them carefully
to wallow in the clean
adulation.”

Lathy focussed on the applause – what more could he want?

The whole Underworld before us – an Underground of low ceilings and caverns where the people waited for the Aboveground to forget them – and what a shadow of villains to forget.

I spoke to many by their fires as we passed them by – I gathered names and epithets:

Troll-And-Troll-By; Troll Hazard of Trace; Troll Hazard of Tritrace; Chafe Litter.
Obloquium; Rince Pytcher; Jeffrey Gods Fo; Nichol Hartles; Simon Soone and Soon Agon.
Grene Winchard; Proctou; Commitour of Tidinges; Gyle Hather; Bawd Phisicke.
Mounch Present; Cole Prophet; Cory Favell; Dying Thrift; sweet Esen Droppers.
Choplogyke; Unthrifte; Ungracious; Nunquam; Ingratus; and the others.

They smiled as we walked by and ran a hand over guns and knife hilts and spat their cliché to the floor.

“Not clowns!

[…I said…]

These ones all laugh
when they find it appropriate
and they look at us bright
with all-wide smiles.”

And maybe, this once, for once and always I liked it down here – all at home and homely, domesticated and coolly happy to be home where the danger lies around itself.

“The Cage
was like this place
and Sick Brian and the others
all a-one and a-pair,
all warm blethers…”

But undergrounds grow darker – Lathy crept unsure – he never hunted in his memory for the Cage we had come from – his eyes and shitty forehead under new-restored armour greening his way sweated beads and trails past his nose.

These men, his body suggested, are designed to take from you – removed from the city they pass on to you the chorus and take your charms from you.

“Think: trust
begins with ‘T’ –
ask them for a cuppa, squire; talk
as if we know them all.
You see? You see?”

And then he sang quietly under his breath, a comfort song in fear for his life.

“It’s a trial, a threat
of judgement from the corner
the lack-of-light
boot-of-car, backed-off-light
that threatens me, so
I comfort myself –
what way? what ho!

“Take a shoulder shudder
tie it up in a bag
of cloud, a cloud of rags,
of course, a shroud
of birth and comfort
and hug the bag –
be twee and warm.

“Then smooth the tears
on foreheads, sweated
through exertion, smiling
that borrowed beguiling grin
and let the world in!
Let the world in…
Let the fuckers-
shithead-bastards in…

“The alleys to be covered
in chintz and cushioned.
The paths to be camerad
photographed and mentioned
in hourly dispatches
of the trustworthy.

“A murder cannot happen,
my murder cannot happen
when the deathsquads –
neds and foolheart bastards –
lead a fight wearing out
their dots and stripes
in rainbow rations.

“Yes, this comfort is
a noble thing.”

They moved in to us – the low roof above us giving way to the high roof beyond and the thousands (so Lathy claimed) drew a circle around us – I laughed at the inevitability of it all.

“Such fun
to be dangered
and circled, merry-go-rounded
in this carnival dark
of grand villains!”

A leader – unimportant who – took to the front of us and drew ten men in a line – see the firing squad waiting to send us to the god of our choosing.

“Take aim, boys,

[… one gunman serenaded…]

to fire just like
our boss ‘ere, Dyer,
has said to do
and show the bullets
into eyes and faces
and cover all other
body parts’n’places
in some bullet shot
and shoo and snot.
Don’t miss now.”

I smiled – Lathy piled his misery and terror and shit-faced sweat and torture to a mountain.

And the triggers were pulled.





prev - 3.1 Walls and Gate
next - 3.3 Lathy in the Underworld

3.1 Walls and Gate

Argument: Lathynarn returns, treasure in tow and attempts to enter the city – no luck, no luck.

One day, cold day, autumnday, we returned to the City, the Cage and the__ pity we’d been gone so long! we lost the summer but gained a new dawn with the sunrise and moonfall and a sprinkle of circus frost on the ground – but how pretty, how yes, how very, very pretty are the sparkles on the road on which we trod.

The ponies – laden – trotted behind our horses with more mules beyond them:

- the caravan of camels who brayed the name of the knight who led them – ha-hee-harn! ha-hee-harn!;
- one stowed bags of silver coins – the King’s head banging off the Queen’s fingered loins;
- one with spices - ginger, mace – a cinnamon trunk, a saffron taste;
- one with lapis lazuli – rings and necklaces and real carved birds with blue lapis wings and blue lapis eyes;
- the gold chest, the tabernacle, holding the truth, the money, the ruthless hunt for all and selfless giving of alms;
- the books of foreign learning, the Moorish astrolabes, the calculus and algorithms in pebble shifting problems;
- diamonds as big as the pits they were dug from;
- a cannon, a minstrel, one in charge of the other – one thinking the other was an unnecessary bother;
- a potted orange tree;
- a lemon tree jagging the ass that yanked it;
- and more, and more…
- some countless gems,
- some rich-hemmed robes of silk and threads and clowning clothes and bewigged heads, shrunken and shaking in the cool autumn breeze,
- dismembered noses, strung along on a line…

What a sight we made as we approached the City Walls.

And what Walls! dutifully built to keep those enemies out, but we were no enemy – we had left once, yes, in theft and anger, but no danger in allowing us back in – yes, what a piece! what a surrounding! from cloud to grounding of grass, water and earth – engineering beyond all other cities of the world and all the cities of the worlds’ worth and treasures… no stately pleasures were absent from this home.

Why did we stop and spend time looking at the walls? there’s a gate to get through! and our silhouette against sky with matte painting of the City is tedious for more than 360 frames… there’s a Gate to get through and we tramped on with our loot and winnings practising the names we would be awarded by the King.

“Hey, Guard!

[… Lathy shouted, as we halted before the gates…]

Let us in there.
We are from the inside there.
We belong to inside
and want back home.

“We are
domestic beasts
domesticated by our birth
inside the city walls.
Now let us in!”

The City Walls – one Gate only – we stood before it and the Guard in his high position looked down at us and looked – just looked – the City Gate is lonely ‘til it realises there are two – one to go in, the other out; the Guard knew this, but kept it from us.

“Hey, Guard!
Let us in there.
We are from the inside there.
We belong to inside
and want back home.

“We are
domestic beasts
domesticated by our birth
inside the city walls.
Now let us in!”

Lathy repeated his line – a gambit, his opening and the Guard looked on, threw a stare at us, fluttered down and lifted a frown and spilt some words from his cauldron of a mouth:

“Inside…
inside… you’ll want
inside of here but can’t afford
the fee which you must pay
to open gates.”

A fee? a new thing… it once was, when we were here before, quite free… free and fee and fo-fi-fum – what kind of giant ruled the King’s City now?

“We have
plenty money
and other things – those other things –

[… he pointed back…]

to pay our way on through
that Gate of yours.”

But the Guard laughed, then looked, blank-looked and stared and never faltered on the path of looking – he cared not one bit for the treasures we brought back.

“Attack
with your money
all you like, little dwarfish man.
But we do not know what
nor who you are.

“Come back
when we have learned
your name and you have earned passage
to the inside from there,
from the outside.”

[The outside of a City is soulless, the inside holds its soul – but only when regarded vice-versa from the other and standard side… unstandard me would later learn.]

I’ll cut detail and state: for hours we argued and shouted and declared Lathynarn a knight, ennobled by the King at that game of chess those months ago.

But then, there was, some way above us – up high, in a tower, from a window, from the walls – listen closely and careful – handful of earful, let it all in – the sound of two hands clapping – slapping themselves off the other, just a sound and quiet – no noise and riot of a mob, just one, and enough, seeking the sky and the tear that dripped from Lathynarn's left and laziest eye.

“I know

[… he whispered to me, and far too late …]

a second way
to enter the City, bypass
the Gate and its Guard and find
the one who claps.

“Female
hands above us.
We know her, and I recognise
the tone of the clapping.
Let’s find her now.”

He ran to the left.




prev - Intercessionary ballad (two)
next - 3.2 Down, down, down

Intercessionary ballad (two)

Dwarfish knight, dwarfish knight
lack of height suddenly
fall on earth heavily
surely and awfully.

Take out the pins with you
take out the sins with you
as you follow the shortest path
down to the end of you.

Refrain:
Hey-non, rolldown
the gravity attendant
resplendent
suspendant
Hey-non rolldown,
rolldown! rolldown!
Hey-non rolldown,
and down to the end and –

Tough-plighted, delighted
war-mongered dwarfery
dressed in obsidian,
pumice and porphyry.

Clad in conglomerate,
flint, lignite and quartz -
stone –wearing unblinkered
in rock-laden shorts.

Refrain:
Hey-non, rolldown
the gravity dependent
impendent
descendent
Hey-non rolldown,
rolldown! rolldown!
Hey-non rolldown,
and down to the end and –

Tall-taled and midget knight
made it once through the night
by standing and keeping stood
full-weighted understood.

Fall gravity, the fool of you
fool gravity, the fall of you
will come when the shortest half
takes the other one ahead of you.

Refrain:
Hey-non, rolldown
the gravity transcendent
condescendent
defendant
Hey-non rolldown,
rolldown! rolldown!
Hey-non rolldown,
and down to the end and –

Trot back home, retract your steps
find your end and next and next
replace your life with celebration
of who you are and expectation.

And listen out, seek out applause
the clap, the noise from outerspace
than sends souls into innerpeace
and pause and pause and, wait now – pause.




prev - 2.8 Tomorrow is...
next - 3.1 Walls and Gate

2.8 Tomorrow is…

Argument: … about running back.

“I wrote
a poem on
the Mysteries of Man and Crow
and of how the Above
came from Below.

“Poems
are pointless beasts –
they sing a mystery to all
the hillsides and lochsides
that never fill.

“They land
THUD! dull and thud
like a crow black on a plateau
that waits a century
to start its job.

“My rhyme
told how the crow
sat coldly, deafly, deadly dark
and crowlike in shiver
and dreadfulness.

“And then
the awfulness
began – its body broke and split
itself in two and bled
black feathers out.

“They lay
for a second
before joining to another
chick, another crow CRAW
itself to birth.

“Then four,
and then again
eight burst and divided themselves
to make sixteen of them.
Next thirty-two.

“And on
and on – the task
of crowdoubling continued on
past one sunset, one dawn,
creating them all.

“The flat
of the plateau
bumped itself and grew up upwards,
clouds scratching the hillock
the crows became.

“Black Hill
came from Crowhill
and grotesqueries of doubling
and on and on to form
the mountainside.

“See there
in my poem
the growing hill of crowcorpse piled
beneath a setting moon
with one live bird.

“Robin
living, flying
above grass and landing crowtop
on the hilltop singing
the song of crows.”

A short pause.

“I wrote
a poem on
the run from the authorities –
police chasing my lone
Bonnie-and-Clyde.

“I hid
where the coldest
hide – a black ditch in wintertime
and there, frozen, composed
an ice poem.

“I sang
the ditchdirt bold
and the dryness, the wherefores rang
a whyness at my words,
then came the birds.

“A crow
trickled to me,
lay crawing, dry clay layering
a pattern on feathers
and summoning.

“Fifty
more swept along
in this, my brief crowriver song,
they gathered at my feet
like bobbed fluid.

“Fifty
more swept along
like the rivers Clyde and Llwyd
strong in force, they stepped up
to my ankles.

“Fifty
more swept along
the aunts and uncles of the first,
the ancestor crowform,
the source, the well.

“Thousands
more swept along –
in hiding I then swam rivers
of crows and crowbodies,
a drowning stream.

“Thousands
on top thousands
each an atom in the water
crowbrother, -son, -daughter
-mother, -father.

“All crows
all ignorant
of the stream they were inside of
and were of and became
distant and further.

“I drowned
once in feathers,
twice on the bodies, thrice on fear
and was swept on away
from around here….

“Robin
landed on me
on my drowning corpse and body
of poems and whistled
his moonsong down.”

A short pause, the starlings mutter and sing mimetic songs.

“I wrote
a poem on
the train going through the forest
and the passengers looked
at both of us.

“The trees
were as oddly
built and ungodly as I was –
poet poemising
just-just because.

“I saw
the crows alight
on bare branches outwith the train
in their millions, they formed
the leaves again.

“Shadowed
wing, beak and claw
against the fall of the moonlight
against the wooded law
and wooded night.

“I’d lie
to say the trees
were crows and the crows trees if all
I required for truth
were good eyes.

“But night
shades the other
ways to paralyse the Other
Differences that come
with the sunrise.

“I saw
a tree made of crows,
a forest made of crows – Crowwood
plain outside the poet
and his window.

“And more
each tree was not
a tree at all but most crowlike
from the feathered rootballs
to each black twig.

“All crow,
all trickster, huge
in scale and black variety
in all these stolen trunks
and holes and burls.

“And all
their million eyes
came from the million other trees
we sped past in motion
ignoring croweyes.

“And through
the night –whoo! whoo! –
the night train whistle clarions
away while one lone bird
fights the crowpain.

“Robin
jumps from each branch
to branches, poor wee Cock Robin
sure to be killed by our
oncoming train.”

A short pause, the starlings mutter and sing mimetic songs, stealing what they must and throwing it back in a style to be wasted and washed-up and –out and watered to the birds.

“Now then,
now then – let’s go
and leave these crows behind and scram
in one-sound-words and be
the best in town.”

Lathy stood shadowed and redbreasted under the sky, a moon threatening to fall, and he looked to the road and the road to his eyes – the day came changing, the change of the day took Lathy and his squire, his narrator, away.




prev - 2.7 Clown War
next -

2.7 Clown War

Argument: an orange peeled, a challenge made, and the Clown War atrocious.

We’re getting to the point where elation and despair meet through the appearance of a clown – that envy, that death, that knightly shadow, and dwarfish stare.

This is about passion, about PASSION, which turns despair to elation and elation to action and action to the future of Lathynarn the Knight.

“We are in a cage whose bars
are arms and nylon legs
of clowns with custard pies
and rubber-strung guitars.

“The floor squared off
by two-foot shoes left tapping
a paradiddle inbetween
the comic coughs.

“I’m sure the floor
is a carpet of faces,
a laughing, gurning audience
begging, screaming for the door.

“I’m sure the upside
is open to the gloried stars
had there been gloried stars
shining down on the inside.

“I’m sure, I’m sure…
the magic of a circus dust
holds us in this rainbow
with its glitter, dust and stoor.”

One clown – jester – knight stares over at us - Sir Dagonet peels an orange – peeling an orange takes you out of life, to the concentration required to make an act of an art which is only as good as the fruit presented – Dagonet can peel in a single strand – he is a master of the art of stolen citrus plus golden hand.

[I’ve always found the peeling of an orange perverse, some alien act we acquired from beyond the fern frond of our cluster of galaxies – it takes normality and crushes it to a wonder – and I watched Dagonet carefully take skin from pith from fruit and I was all a-wonder…]

My master pulled his shoulders back, yanked his sword from his armour, lifted visor and spat on the peel dropping down from the segments:

“Knighted
in comedy
and left to struggle afterwards.
After words of the King
vanished each day…”

He rhymed:

“The King never rated you anyway.
You were a mess! he laughed all of your jokes away
as unfunny and grim –
you did not amuse him
you midget-dwarf, shrunken Sir Dagonet.

“You fooled the King into a knighting
by convincing him you were delighting
his beauty, the Queen,
while the Crowd inbetween
forced a snigger at your ev’ry sighting.

“Your short-sighted, knighted court-jester’s
dirty mac is a greasy sou’wester –
you flash at the ladies
who scream and relay: ‘He’s
a pervert, a creep, a sex-pester!’

“So sober up and cut down the joking –
you have convinced all these clowns into smoking
their life through your battle,
this pram-flung lost rattle,
that leaves all participants choking.

“Now fight me, now challenge your serviette
of armour ‘gainst my leatherstrong letraset
of armour secure
and passion so pure –
pick up your sword and fight me, Sir Dagonet!”

The orange peel fell from his hands – the orange peel fell to the floor – the orange peel crumpled, repositioned itself – and the jester-knight, Dagonet, swore:

“I know
what she can be –
do you remember her spiral
twisting round through the trees
some decades ago?

“Her name
will never call
itself to your limited lips
and your primitive hands
will not hold her hips.

“Her face
will never say
its eyes to your near-sighted eyes,
her mouth to your far-sight,
her thighs to your thighs.

“She is,
but not for you
and never to you, and never
for you, and never still
for you forever.”

I had, I confess, forgotten her – that spinning woman through the trees, in the forest, churning wood to Thomas to herbs, to the plain and Quixana, to the tower, the underground and finally these last, these lame, these cold-forgotten, caged-forming and forsaken and famously fostering clowns.

Who had she been? it seems Sir Dagonet knows… he rhymed a prophecy back to my Lathynarn:

“You took on Dear Fame and were wanting
in all manner of tasks, you were flaunting
your fools and your falls,
your hen-pecked crow calls
and ended up in a barrel of taunting.”

Lathy launched at him with sword and fury, but Dagonet stepped aside – my master clattered into the cage and crumbled on the floor: the clowns forming the bars all laughed at his falling – a laughing, a laughing, a war cry, a calling of battle to be done and fighting-yes-fighting-when-has-the-fighting-begun?

***

The Clown War – it’s a gentle affair – but how does it begin?

First, realise that there are no sides but the clown’s sole own – no enemy but the mass and rabble all around – each clown for himself and one buttonhole skoosh against all – like a bumblebee loose on a railway carriage passageway or hall.

Next, a pie thrown – a hooter burst water, a hat burnt or stolen or juggled to the air – each clown for herself and one whiteface against all – like buildings falling down, like einstürzende neubauten – it’s all a joke with those honky-tonk old monkeyshines, who slip on their banana peels, the world at their feet, pretending they are dancers, and falling, with no rhythm, to defeat.

And last, the red noses are removed to show the reason for their being: I say, I say, I say – wherefore the nose of a clown so removable? to cover the scar of the nose that was removed, clean bitten and ripped by the teeth of other clowns – each smitten by the taste of the honker, the beak, the schnozzle…

Lathynarn stood up as all comedy broke loose and the cage collapsed to the Clown War surrounding – noise, riot and rabble, and scrabble of fingers to eyes and teeth to nose and knees to balls and fists to mouths and kidneys and throats.

We are witnessing an atrocity of clowns – and those in retreat are prone to that atrocity.

***

“Come boy,
now returning
from adventuring is our aim
and then to make my name

(… he turns to the painted, iron-canvassed sky, his nose now bleeding…)

Now what to do?”

prev - 2.6 Camp Clown
next - 2.8 Tomorrow is...

2.6 Camp Clown

Argument: Into the harlequinade, the pantomime and farce with joy and laughter and a dwarf knight, a dwarf clown and a looking glass appeal.

And this was it? incredulity is common at the cliff edge, reducing it to a step – well? what did you expect? we all conform in the end to the disc of the cloud-covered sun…

Here is Camp Clown where an army stands.

And I stood looking for terror and saw none – Lathy stood with a grin on his face - the circus is in town! – a cavalcade of lights with tripping, a clowning and jesting around – a carnival, a fiesta blaring – a harlequinade of colours apparent to the birth-right blind - a sawdust floor – a canvas roof and the towering pillars of wood, the supports to fall off of! – the dubious black and bankrupt white gone up the hooter suggesting to the ear and honking and currawing – a custard pie, clowns that fly like an elephant, some diligent cannon firing flailing arms and legs to a net made of buttons, a juggler juggling grenades with their pins out… so many sights, so many sights…

Let’s count the clowns and their numbers ahead of us:

- a dirge of Pierrots, sad-cheeked as the evening sun and bathetically falling, stood eighteen strong on the left of the cavern;
- a looking glass of thirty Joeys on the right – red-cheeked and manic with hot codlins and gin set out and laid before them;
- thirty Buddys before us, all tumbled and joked and laughed at the spectacle;
- Finn the bright and fair times twenty;
- Gelsomina, dazzling white with hair of nylon straw, small hat with stripes, there stood fifty with trombones and eyes unwiped;
- Gorm the dark, the shining clown of some small violence, seventeen of these, an anapaest apparent;
- Uaine, bright green-haired knight and rubber axe carrier – there was only one of him, but he towered above the rest and glowered to hilarity from all;
- Donn the bumpkin, brown to grey – sixty-seven dressed in the countryway;
- Odor – brown, scatological fool, uncountable hordes of Caganer a-shitting;
- Corcair, the pirate, red as a beetroot, purple as a peach – fifteen of the first, forty-seven of each…

I stopped counting at the chaos ahead and smiled also – there were more, there were Ruads and Liaths and Flanns – seven Lachtnas milked a cow made of paper and plastic, but I could not record it as each new image came to view.

“Some fools
and comedy
are all the wide-world can handle!
I’m amazing at views
lit by candle!”

Lathy laughed, I laughed also – this is laughter, this is entertainment, we need no more – each body assuming a form already made and apparent as the anapaest already stated – who rates these clowns? themselves and no others – this is a world of contained self-indulgence that cares not that it is.

We walked on into the mass and listened to their songs:

“Why is a clown like
a chicken when
crossing the road – why
do birds suddenly
appear on the inside
of a clown’s plastic ear –
why-or-what-and
who is Clown Excelsis
with the white face,
the red nose grand,
the shoes, hooped belt
hair and COLOUR appear
with a pump organ
pumping a pigeon
to the ground?”

“I say I say
I say did you
hear the one
about why
insert X
crossed the room
to fit a road,
door, who’s there
to hear the ways
I tell ‘em.
Boom, boom,
and boom.”

“Clown become
a regular, dumb
and miming thumb
‘s up of lift and rhyme.”

A flock of clowns yatters like a murmuration of starlings, a parliament of rooks and a library of darlings with a lover’s nest of books set out to adore them.

We walked through the crowd.

“I’m not
scared of any.
They are foolish, are imbeciles –
like walking through penguins
or herds of seals.”

A natural opening in the crowd always opened before us but all ignored us until we came to some calm – a council, a chamber whose walls were the madness and joy of the clowns all around – trapeze and tumble surrounding the ones who thought of the laugh and comedy and the buns to be fired at the enemy, the dangerous ones.

Twelve eyes, like the tribes of Israel, turned and stared – each pair above a blood red nose, each pair bright in a confidence of looking.

“Who are

[…one pair offered…]

these folk standing,
disturbing and unjestering
over there? they appear
quite unlike ourselves.

“No nose
like ours, no clown,
no comedy, some armoured dwarf
and a boy stood beside
who can never hide.

“Bring ‘em
to the centre –
the presenter and dissenter
in armour and in youth,
let me speak to ‘em.

“Let ‘em
know Dagonet
is alive and well and living
underground for ‘em all
to ignore again.”

I heard none of this and have invented somesuch for you – the eyes spoke in French, in Hindi, or in some Yoruban tongue I was too young to understand – my tongue is bland speech, not linguistic gourmet, not listening glutton – I was more keen on the clown who stood beside me: her Stan Laurel hair and green buttons appealing to a silence in me – a focus towards the eyes that never meet –

like knowing there’s a spider in the room –
a baby in the womb –
a continually unwound funeral shroud on the loom –
a flat path at the top of cold, blessed and sublime White Coomb –
an explosion, an explosion, a BOOM! a BOOM!–
like Doom juggling the juggler of Doom…

While Lathy claimed the clowns in totality, I could not claim the attention of this one beside me – so marks the difference between what the dwarf knight, some feet left of modernity, and the young boy squire require from their lives.

The speaker stood up – to the same height as Lathynarn! – some dwarf clown before us but wearing harlequin armour and shield – was he a knight or a clown? a fool or a hero? their faces were alike – were they twins? were they doubles? were they clichés or forms and little more than expected? their voices untapped, for one spoke longer than the other…

“I am
Sir Dagonet,
knight of the King, clown of him too.
Who, midget knight, are you?
What washes you here?

“We can
only say this:
fuck off away, you are not us –
not a comedian,
nor clown, nor jester.

“Pester
some serious
folk instead – take your dwarfishness
away and crack your head
on an audience.

“You are
not wanted here
at this carnival of laughing –
neither big folk nor small,
nor those worth halfing.”

And around us all the clowns continued their entertaining.

prev - 2.5 Rattle Big Black Bones

next - 2.7 Clown war

2.5 Rattle big black bones

Argument: Two openings – from light to neon, from neon to dark – allow Lathynarn to enter the underground and its rattle-more-so, up-metal noise.

I saw a cat come from behind the church – black, looking – it disappeared as I stepped down to the station, reappearing on the platform – looking left, right, black – the train light shone behind it – its eyes lit at me and it jump-stepped down to those two perspective-driven tracks – clacks, cracks as the train arrived – it crossed and jump-stepped four foot to the other side, moved under the fence and sauntered up the cutting.

Obstacles need not be so, we are suggesting.

A slicing light, a wall could not hold us – Lathy stepped forward and smashed – up to the oche and aim Sir Lathynarn, your dart your self! your sharp right hand – crash lights and glass – a shattering, a dimming, a squealing sunshower – like gazing on the surface of the hot, demented fireball – some square meters of the light-outgiving tall, infected wall fell at the touch of his metalised hand.

Quixana clapped at the rags around his metalised arms:

“Bravo, Sir Midget Dwarf!
what a dwarf this knight is!
what a night to be a dwarf –
some glory as glass and light fall down
at your eyes a-gazing,
your mouth a-sterning,
your feet a-standing
secure a-sured
leaping not out the way.”

When noise and riot finished – a crystal choir calmed and silenced – the car crash at his feet revealed an opening ahead – glass hung, the shattering, the dimming, the shimmering surround – the rim of the opening showed the wall to be made of lightbulbs, not bricks – and no electrical tricks to electrocute us – what luck that Lathy had…

“Sir Dwarf

[…quoth Quixana…]

will you enter?
If you do, I refuse to pass
through, instead I’ll wander
the plain alone
and hunt
for my sancho
and the armour he stole in glee
with a gnawing and crunch
of his bare bones.
and then
for the limelight
where I’ll stand displayed in spotlight
and gleam a metal grin
at gathered crowds.”

Lathy harrumphed.

“Later,
I will meet you
again at some point, just later
from today and from now.
And I should bow.”

So, respecting etiquette, both bowed to the other – Quixana exeunted.

***

We stepped through the dwarf-made doorway, enough height for me in this wall of light, crunching the new ground glass of the ground – we saw the tower shone light inwards as much as outwards – we saw a chamber within and before us, we saw…

“Lathy…
ruminating
on where we are, I’d hazard this:
a tower of dreamings
where all is true.

“Reading
books can help you
calculate these things correctly
and logically show
the truth around.

“We stand
in a tower
of light emitting filaments
surrounding one further
there – of neon.”

A second lighthouse in front of us formed of neon tubes – green twistings on red, blue waves crashing on the poor yellow sun – a pulsing, a vegas of light animating before our eyes – a form of a knight chopping the dragon’s head again and again – and once more the king mounting a horse and charging to appear at the start – a queen’s heart breaking at the death of a favoured – a game of chess, the knight always taking the pawn or the pawn giving up to the knight – scenes covering a tower and televising in five frames a simple tale.

Lathy spoke:

“Look, squire,
a new tower.
But we do not need to break this –
there’s an open trapdoor
near the centre.”

He was right – beneath the scene in white, blue and yellow of a joust and falling from a horse, a trapdoor stood open, resting on the neon-lit and light-emitted field of play.

I climbed down the ladder first; he led second, best for knights in armour.

Tunnels – are they sewers? are they bunker? who owns these shapes they make beneath the earth? what for? wherefore the twisted roofedness? the light is one of always-around-corners carting shadows and puppets to the walls – what walls! a time for exclaiming… some ground metal, carved iron, some scraped and screed with filings on the floor.

These tunnels – it is clear – are places for finding; less a labyrinth than the plain above – less ways to be lost, just follow and fifty-fifty.

“Which way
now, Lathynarn?
We can follow it, sir, and lose
our way, our path outwith
the ways we go…”

We walked on, then left, drew right and forward, twist and bend and always two choices – left or right? here or there? opposites forcing a decision onto us.

But Lathy’s sword stuck to the walls – its magnet forcing halts now and then to disconnect itself from the outside to hang again by his side.

A smile from him:

“Show us
the right turnings
and deliver us to the end
of these places and show
the terminus.

“This way,
now there, go here,
upwards, no – leftwards and through there
and there, climb over it
up left, right, through.”

The sword was our guide – he held its charisma out and felt its pull to the decision to be made.

“Amen.
For saving’s sake
deliver us from evil turns,
from clownly turns, lions
and tigers and__”

Then the noise began.

A rumbling groan, a scrape screeched off the echoes that rattled bones, black as dark, around the corners – a dark town seemed ahead, a cackle, a thudder and jud – a junkyard was heard to explode, throwing metal around and landing on itself – some danger zone promised, some promised land of noise and noise and NOISE all around – there’s a world going on somewhere near – a mining, a drill of fearing-too-quiet-to-be-heard above the shouts and screams and cackles that rattled jokes like the bones at walls to resound – clash, crack, wrack and smash it - a tractor eruption, a digger malfunction – a joke being told as hilarious as dynamite on the zimmer frames of the old who cannot hear – speak up! hurry up please its time…

“It’s time
to see, Lathy,
what’s making noise ahead of us.
Turn this one last corner,
the sword says so.”



prev - 2.4 Lighthouse
next - 2.6 Camp Clown

2.4 Lighthouse

Argument: Genealogies and war stories as Lathynarn crosses the iron plain to spy something, a new day, on the horizon.

I asked myself: who was this metal knight we walked with on the iron plain? I asked him and he began:

“Father
of my father’s
fathers’ fathers’ et cetera.
Let me sequence my past
from first to last:

“Noah begat Cherom
who swam by the ark
as penance for his stench –
his brothers would wrench
the wood from the hull
to waft off the smell
had he shat aboard.
Cherom swam by the ark,
a mighty sailor
of his boat made of water
and famed as a shark-
baiter extraordinaire –
he was a fifteen per center
when he sold on to old Noah
but was disowned
for his stench and his politics:
quite left of centre
and socialist in principle.

“Cherom on landing
begat dear Jeshua
long-lived and bearded
and twitted in excelsis –
who claimed the whole world
of meals was held resident
in his facial hair:
a ballotine of eels,
a junket of pear,
a guava soup of lemon leaves
and peaves of peach-air
within bubbles of pig-bollocks –
for this he was disowned
and abandoned,
crowned and never pardoned
as the King of Heathen Foods.
Wine soaked his beard
and drenched his poor wife –
quite drunk and peaceable
for the remainder of her life.

“Jeshua begat Anhesus
who begat Desparus
who begat Trióde –
yp-yippity and glory day!
for he earned great accolades
and cheers for his puked-up
mixtures of lime-necked
beers of foreign lands.

“Trióde begat Job –
moaning cunt of a man
with pus and retro-
active wonders on his skin
that begged a thirst to begin
the patient story of his life.

“Job begat Absalon
who begat Legion
and Gentile begatted
by Legion who batted
his sperm to all-comers –
Head Spin Oafs
and Rum Tum Tummers,
Tuggers and Glory-Bes
to the crowds and faces.

“Gentile begat Asher
the Ancient and Childless
who took after grandfather
and whose semen was sieved
and alternately mixed
with honey and ash
and smeared betwixt
the breasts of fallen women.

“Asher begat no-one
but his money to further
the cause of insemination
and brought to the world
some shy ones in corners
and their children’s desires
to mix and procreate
a new land twirled-up
in blue and red.

“The crowd, that noise and rabble,
begat my father: Ibn Hasid of Levant,
well-versed in the poet’s
idle conversation and cant.”

The procedure halted.

“But why

[…I asked…]

have you become
a metal man, when your father’s
fathers have been bodies
of flesh like me?”

Quixana looked down at me sideways, a corner of an eye to hide in, and tapped that foam red nose he had strung around his head and shooooshed me to silence.

[I supposed that a knight must have epithetic ancestors to justify himself – something to do with good knightly health, like greens and vitamins, like warm milk and citizens who address the church each Sunday in happy tones.]

“But why

[…I continued…]

do you wear that?
A red nose, slightly sillier
than clown feet and wigged hair
multi-coloured?”

He turned his head this time – the moon glinted off the crafted eyebrows which, by complex means, hydraulics and pulleys, could lower to conspiracy – plus his voice was programmed for music in times of drama:

“Young boy,
you would be wise
to acquire one on this plain –
this flat territory
is dangerous!
The clowns,
not those you know,
wander here in search of Dear Fame
and Dear Celebrity
and will slaughter
the ones
who do not seek
the seekings they parade themselves
in honour of and sing
the praises of!”

I remembered clowns and fools from the days a game of chess ended quick – sick Brian was terrified, we all lied to avoid them – a fear of clowns, devils and demons a genetic necessity the books informed us – and they were somehow here on this plain! what demonic comedy did they wish to perform? Quixana shook a head at my fear:

“Danger
is relative –
they would only bite your nose off.
Slaughter is a figure
of speech only –
do not
be scared of them;
but be wary of the terror
that they would entertain
out towards you.

“A war
is underway
underneath our feet – enemies
as numerous as days
of the year,
equal
to the total.
Every clown for himself and God
(whichever) against all
in the battle.

“Fear not.
Instead just laugh
at the jokes and routines and glee
that brings you much closer
to the Clown War.

“Listen:
I was perhaps
the first to see it rumble up
through the manhole covers
to the overground.
Starting
with a clatter
the first clown pushed at the cover
and pulled himself upwards.
Elbows and hands
rolling
the heavy disc
to the side, clattering it down
the street, spinning its way
down avenues.
Then he
staggered upright.
I saw his blue satin wig
his harsh green sideburns
and his red nose
bloody,
scratched and hanging.
His trousers pantalooned, ballooned
with the updraft, down
from the underground.
His belt
four foot around,
its circumference an orbit
of his thin waist, that nose
a scarlet sun.
The noise –
banging a crash
of metal on bone –
erupted like Etna
from underneath
and came
overground around
me – then the clown looked at me, stared
as at a guilty boy.
And then he ran.”

Quixana turned from me and we walked on quiet while I scoured the ground – this overground above that Clown War’s underground – for a nose, red, to disguise me as one of them.

“But if

[…I said to myself…]

it’s one for one
in this war of a million clowns
and no other people…
… why be a clown?”

We walked on – first Lathy, then Quixana with myself following at the back.

***

“Light! Lit!
Luminated!
Look out - a light’s ahead of us!
Not the moon’s reflection
in the distance!”

Lathy shouted out and jumped some inches in the air – he was right – over there a tower of light that begged us to run to it – we did not scrimp on it – we took speed in our feet and ran with little care for the first light beyond moon, stars and reflections we had seen in the years we had walked on the plain – since we had left our ponies in their stationary pain – since we had walked and walked in this maze of no lanes and alleys to distract us but a compass rose of options to choose which way to train our future on.

The tower – this lighthouse – grew larger and we saw it above us – the clanking feet of Lathy and Quixana loud on the metal ground echoed off these walls we did not expect: light from each brick, a wall of blinding light to make us shield our eyes – four hundred feet of light, spot lit, incandescent, fluorescent, halogen and LEDs before us lies – I looked through fingers for some darkness before us.

And then, with a music box accident and fling-at-wall attention, Lathynarn’s digital watch struck BEEP!

It was midnight and a new day began.

prev - 2.3 On the plain

next - 2.5 Rattle big black bones

2.3 On the plain

Argument: A journey through the forest leads to the empty plain, two leavings and one arrival – two for one is a sorry exchange.

Very gently, gently, the sun rang down the line of the horizon and the moon rose silver and bloomlike above us – stately, plump – it shone a light on us as we stumbled through the flowers and that stream of flowers we were in – all tumbling together; washing rosewater, crocus-sweat and tears-of-piss-a-bed through our hair.

I gained balance around my pony’s neck and saw Lathy ahead of me – some nobility of moonlight perched upon his steed.

“Indeed!

(… he shouted…)

This is travel!
This is life… Accommodation
of the road and river
sweep us onwards!”

Float, float, follow and follow… what’s to be seen between the trunks and the green and brown of the leaves in the drifting scene?

To the left a handful of knights errant and truant from the castle fighting beasts – look, Sir X takes a snark, in turn quite blinded by the other – his armour bright, its body black… again, left and further down, Sir Y climbs the stumped and broken dark tower humped on a hillock ‘midst marsh drab and glamour fuelled of magick – Sir Z battles demons, his own it’s said.

To the right there were the victories and stolen lives drifting by – a woodsman with his axe taking a tree to the market – a hunter with gun gunning the squirrels and the targets painted gold – the priest with his habit, a dirty habit all soiled.

The view was spoiled by the half-light and still we drifted down the avenue between the trees – the blooms reaching up to my childish knees.

And then somehow it happened – we left the forest – a flat land appeared in the dark and the river widened to a delta washing the plant life of the woods to the triangle of the plain.

The flow lessened, pressure stuck, the depth of flowers reduced to some fingerfulls – we thudded to a halt and I was almost thrown from my pony’s neck – Lathy likewise and he ordered:

“Pony –
move on from here!
Mush! Tally! Don’t disenchant me;
take me on a distance
and move your arse.”

But she would not move and nor would mine – stationary, statues living in two inches of bloom – I spotted dandelion, marsh hedgings and circus weed – but spotted no kick of hooves to scatter them.

“Jump down
and pull ‘em, boy.
Let ‘em know who’s boss around here –
kick, whip ‘em, and move ‘em –
grab at their ears.”

I did so, gentle at first but pulled harder given minutes – they whinnied and mad-eyed as I whipped at their backs with the flat of my hand – when I stopped they pony-sighed-and-pulled-legs in a way that could not move – a thought took me downwards and I scraped away the carpet:

“Their feet
are stuck down fast
and the ground is all metallic –
their shoes are all magnets
and stuck them so.”

Our street tricks to fool starvation had disabled us – no movement in our bellies led to still feet, four feet left on each pony and eight horseshoes glued to the floor.

Dignity held them solid to the metal and, undignified, I pulled the reins and pushed their rumps, dragged at necks, strained at their ankles as they screamed and bit at my head – I begged them – no, please, just a step, come on, take a canter, one trot, one leg, one hoof-full forward, please, for yourselves – desperation is the devil’s smile from the moon.

What to do?

We had no choice – we left them.

We left them standing in the dark in the petal carpet in some silence – Lathy clanked in his metal boots, heavy with vague magnets of his sword and charisma – I cried a little as we walked, but knew the buttercups, the roseflesh, the broom gorse-whin of the river would feed them.

I looked back often and watched them get smaller – Lathynarn, to his credit, grew an inch or so taller.

***

Clank thud and scrape across the iron plain – moon highlighting the flat parts only where there were high parts, and there were none; day after day, day after day the moon revealed our motion over the metal, the rust and the flat – this flat, metallic ocean.

“Walking,
creaking onwards –
where are we headed to, Lathy?
We’ve been hours and days here
but all’s the same.

“No points
on the edges
since we left the ponies standing.
The game’s not so funny
when repeated.

“And on
and on and on,
always on behind Lathynarn –
yes, you there, deaf and blind
to squires behind.

“Hated
and jeopardised:
our feet thudding this blasted ground!
My granddad always worked
in the steel works...

“He knew
the feel of steel
and iron ore and hot smeltings
forming to the girders
of Glengarnock.

“But he,
I must presume,
never walked a week on iron
as we’ve done, suffering
two blistered soles.

“And he,
I must assume,
knew his task, his job and his goals
whereas we must wander
with ignorance…”

I mumbled for the weeks and months we trotted on the moonlit plain with the rust rusting our feet a red martian sand and iron-filings dust staining our face and calling to Lathynarn’s sword.

***

The moon had risen no higher – but I saw him first, slumped on the ground – a burst paperbag of a knight sprawled glowing in the blanched and silver light, with lance and helmet lying beside.

“Someone
is lying there,
Lathynarn, should we see to him?
He is a knight it seems –
fabulously.”

A grunt from Lathy in the knight’s direction.

I ran over to the pile and saw rags cluttered around, a mass of hair polishing the ground and – look closer – is that? no – a metal hand, some rivets, a wired mechanism, some pneumatics – I ran around to the face and there was an approximation of a face in metal – this knight was a machine.

“Sir Knight,
are you able
to stand? Are you alive, Sir Knight?
Can we help you to go
to where you want?”

Lathy walked over to us, kicked the knight and snorted.

“Wake up,
metallic man,
come with us and tell us stories
of how you arrived here
and where to go.”

His eyes lit up, his metal hands creased – he pulled himself to his place, gathered rags and lance and placed his helmet – his barber’s bowl – on his wigged and leonine head and said, no, sang:

“I am Sir Quixana.
I am an ill-made knight.
I seek my squire
and the lost limelight.”

He put a hand in a rag – he wore these rags as his armour had been stolen – and removed a red ball on a length of nylon then placed it around his head – the red ball was his nose.

“Suppose

[…he asked..]

I were a clown
and no metal man, no robot –
what would you take me for
then – and for why?”

Lathynarn ignored him and walked away – Sir Quixana followed and I followed after.

It’s all following, all following this tale.

prev - 2.2 Flowers, fountain and travel
next - 2.4 Lighthouse

2.2 Flowers, fountain and travel

Argument: herbs and ingredients are found in the forest and Lathy chooses a new transport.

We lost the map as we bound through the trees, scraping hands on barks, flinging branches to knees and battling on in pursuit of the body through the leaves.

Who was she and why did she hide from us in the distance and the trees?

[It’s easy to hide in trees – trees are easy to hide behind if you want your face unseen as the space inbetween each trunk and branch is a shadow, leg or torso – the face is not seen.]

And we ran, and we ran, some miles and the ponies panted and struggled over the roots and leaf litter – we battered at their sides and hit him and hit her to speed our way on – but grew slower and slower, an abundance of fatigue on the four of us, lower and lower went the top height of the hooves as we snailed on.

And we lost her – that body that shape through trees.

“We must

(…said Lathy…)

find that woman
and ask her why she circled us,
took a notice of us,
ran from us.”

***

Mapless, preyless, we walked over to the clearing with its fire that smoked around us – a man sat stirring a pot of leaves, some leaves in a pot of burnt metal and potion.

“She’s lost

(… the man said, stirring…)

never to find
her place around you, nor her way
to struggle your passage
through the forest.”

We sat down and watched him stir his pot – never tasting but adding a sprig, a twig and leaf.

“Forests

(… he continued…)

are just boxes
unconstructed but still hiding
what is hidden inside
all those boxes.”

More stirring and smoke – a drop of herb here, a mortared seed, a pestled stem – a petal unbroken, powder of some semi-precious gem were dropped in the pot to simmer in this lived-in spot of the forest.

“Listen

(… he finished…)

carefully now:
you’ll be lost inside this forest
unless you follow me
to the fountain.”

Lathy looked at him and nodded.

***

Thomas the Herbalist took us to his tent– the forest where he found his herbs, where the herbs found their way to him and the trees from Acacia to Yew, the forest was his home.

I was sent to the river for water – the moon still rising, the sun setting, and in the gloaming the surface resonated in blackness, metal, in calm – I lifted stones to throw in the quiet and watch the ripples and wished for a reversal and a stone to fountain back to my hand.

The trees stood around, some falling, some fallen and it seemed to me – I said so to Lathy later – that all the sun and the moon was holding them up and that neither moved and so the trees stand still in the manner they report.

Walking back with the bucket I saw broken glass – green, brown and clear – on the floor, saw Buckfast bottles and plastic forks, cartons and polystyrene – I tiptoed through burnt tree trunks and parties that had been and dropped the water at Lathy and Thomas.

He was singing a recipe for a potion:

“Kidneywort plus distillation
of Butcher’s Broom and Liquorice
make great claims for improved stomachs
if you wish, you wish and if you wish.”

Lathy nodded in agreement.

“Tell me –
can you help me?
I need to find Celebrity
and am sure a potion
will satisfy.”

Thomas looked at him, stood and asked Lathy to do likewise.

“A dwarf
and some knighthood…
what are you, man, that you require
a drink from yours truly
to make you large?

“Mass made –
the lot of you.
No luxury in what you do,
knights are made of damp straw
and nothing more.

“You dwarf
are one of lots
picked and managed to your knighthood
and accepted, in part,
as authentic."

I knew what he meant – the King has many knights – there are simplistic means of production – it is not hard to make a knight these days – once crafted, now simply made (ill-made, half-made, milk-made, man-made).

“Potions
and medicines
are similar – you ingest them
in happy ignorance
when you’re told to.”

He held up a bottle that lit from the fire into a green and gold flame – the label read “SICKLY” – he sang:

“Duck’s Meat root
and soot of Harlequin
in clarified honey
cures the sickly yin.”

This is about ingredients – what’s needed and what’s required, where to find them and what to do – only the herbalist in his forest hermitage ever knew.

“But this
is the potion
for you – ingredients cheaply
lifting and ascending
from infamy:

“Take Clown’s Wood
and Columbine –
associate
with Proserpine,
Heseltine,
root and leaf
of Love-Thee-Mine
mortared, pestled
in oil of Walnut
then smeared
on the chest –
that done best
quite barely,
no armour –
and a plaster applied
and breathing denied
for no more
than thirty seconds.”

With a smile and flourish of hands he ran off to the river, shouting back:

“Follow
me down the path
to the fountain where the flowers
and stalks will be chosen
to make your fame!”

We brought the ponies to the water, splashing through, mud on our feet, ankles sodden with the river and the ground the other side.

Thomas sang for us to follow him and we found him leaning on a pipe from the earth bent right-angled like an airshaft on an ocean liner.

“Witness

( … he said …)

this fierce fountain
and the road down which the flourish
forces its way to seas
of empty lands!”

We looked down the avenue between the trees that the pipe, the airshaft, this flourishing fountain looked down to as well – a brown, decayed path through the trees, some carpet to the distance that met at some point on the horizon.

Thomas pulled a leaver and a rumble began – some thudder from the earth and with a splutter a flower puked out of the pipe, then a second, then a thousand – next a million flowers erupting from this pipe!

What a sight! like some dream…

The flowers piled up, then were pushed by the force from the fountain and some swift glacier of petals moved slow, slow, quick, pirouette-ing slow down the hill and covering the brown, the decay of old flowers.

Thomas stepped by, picking flowers and stems at random to choose for his potion, discarding those he didn’t need – he chanted:

… sweet marjoram, wild dog’s grass,
daisies, coralwort and horehound,
flux-weed and knotwound,
birds-foot, next beech-tree,
juniper and dittany
and jacinths and piss-a-bed,
shit-a-chair, fuck-a-shy,
rubenesque, glory-rose,
crush-a-bye, baby bound,
bough-fallen, dodder thyme,
caraway, rush honeysuckle,
pussy-lickle, tamarisk
the thistle star, the jack-a-hedge,
come sanicle and saxifrage,
sedge-worth under worthsedge,
wordsworth over southeywort,
coleredge mixing keat’s claveron
some byron hair with shelley sop
now crowfoot, now crowfoot,
now crowfoot some more
the clown’s wood, the clown’s wood
the clown’s wood, to roar! …

Lathy and I stepped closer, inches from the movement, the torrent of plant life forcing down the hill.

“Follow

(… it’s always follow, we always follow…)

me this way, squire,
and we’ll find her – she ran down here
some imagination
of flowered thoughts!”

With that he mounted his pony and stepped the muddied hooves into this drier stream – they were pulled in and sent drifting on the bloom – dare I follow? I am my master’s squire and my pony, occupation and life belong to him – I mounted, stepped and flowered down the river – the fountain pumping out our flow and Thomas still counting, enumerating his ingredients.

“Follow,
follow, follow,
follow – follow the flowering
stream to the end of that
flowering road.”

prev - 2.1 In the forest

next - 2.3 On the plain