To the Fables

1

White is the eye within
White the tongue without
White is the heat
White livered, white lunged
Sucking in darkness
Red the blood in silent tower
Red the spleen roasted in fire
Black, though, the mussels
Limpet-like avoiding light
Red-rust the fibre, rose-red grey matter
With tombstone illusions
White the soul, tiny stutter
Of the scream that, stifled, could not
Produce the shout in its dead throat.


2

Great is the crest of the grebe, tufted.
Red is the wreck, full fathom five it lies.   
Brown is the bilge dying on the flotsam.

Yellow is the egg, cracked in the pan:
A yolk of brightness, sunny-side up,
Where breakfast & brunch divide their diets

To wean a worm, coffee-coloured creature
Sent into the garden,
Under compost,
But crawling.  




Ancestry

In the beginning was Worm
And Worm begat Blood
            Sweat
            Tears
And from the Chinese take away
            Spare ribs
            Adam
            Eve
            Sex
Worm begat Genesis
            One
            Noe                       
            Eon
And ended in Malachi:                       
For behold the day cometh
With a curse               

Who begat Worm ?

Foul-mouthed it was
And four-lettered
Screaming

Shivering hairless torso in slimy squalor.




Autopsy at the Morgue Door

How cold like fine brass these plates of meat ?   
Who sold this smooth-as-silk boat race ?            
What gold glitters in this dung ?                           
How old the mould on this plate of mussels ?
How bold the guts to speak His name ?
Who told these abominable lies ?
All this bloody mess ?
These maximum-deficiency mince pies ?
This virtuous great dung ?
This permanent insomnia ?  Worm !

Taken, liberated, imprisoned in aspic !
Worm !

Who disowned the Soul of the Earth ?
Who sold the World ?  Worm !

What is more charitable than Faith ?  Hope
More faithful than Hope ?  Charity
More hopeful than Charity ?  Faith
Longer than Life ?  Death

And what is longer than Death ?  Worm !

Impasse, Death.




Last Will & Testament

Maimed with muscle.
Hurt through the heart with paper probate.
Shot dumb by mouth.
Shamed with a solicitor's statement.
Garrotted just short of his first birthday
With discarded derma.
Battered blind through his own eyes

His whole limbless life in short script
Suffocating under a duck-down pillow.

Towed along by the seat of his pants

Muttering a washing-up bowel
Of discarded crocks
Like rocks in a tea towel

But soaring skywards to Heaven.

Eardrums echoed, loud & near:  What a joy !

God's in His laundry: all's white with the World.


© Robert Ensor 2013