“The Stranger,” composed 5 June, 2012.

 

I stand upon a crossroad with a monster in my skull.

It lives inside (skittering)

And I outside (jittering)

Disguising all my pain.

Atop the hill beside me stands a dark and daring man;

He’s calling out the weather

From the shadows on the heather

With an insight like to Pan.

                                                Dear my Lord remember me.

I look askance and as him of his knowledge of a rhyme,

With homonyms all slanting,

And synonyms all panting,

Dancing all the time.

                                                When you come.

A memory of time is an illusion of the past.

It comforts and assails,

Dismembers and then trails

Into the vagueness of the verse.

                                                But only speak the word.

The stranger (my dear friend) with the knowledge of the heather

First tipped is hat for courage,

Then knit his brow at marriage,

And then we parted ways,

Never to speak again.

            `                                   When you come into your kingdom.

I’d prefer not to.