Camlann

I lie upon my ruined side in the Green Chapel

And listen to the buzz of the flies

Jostling to feast on my dying flesh.

I share my bed with a pool of my blood-laced vomit.

 

I cringe under the cynic’s thorned lash.

Beneath splintered bone and cloven flesh,

That flensing serpent strikes.

Each bite is torpor.

 

The torpor speaks in my ear

And shows me 

A starving man at

The edge of a dead oasis.

He digs for water,

With parched hands full of silver.

 

And yet

 

I want to believe that

Camelot will rise from ruins

and Llamrei will bear her once and future rider once again.

But lash stroke still splits skin.

And each wound wends towards the same revelation.

 

The wounds speak in my ear 

And show me two 

Bold-blooded boys, bound in bitter-black battle, both

Swallowing their teeth

And looking away

From the long awaited axehead arcing 

Towards their necks.

 

I yearn

 

For the King back from his rest at Avalon.

I want to stand steel shod, sage sash serving

To remind me what I strive to be.

I want to be a man and maxim.

For the first time again.

Or again for the thousandth. 

Any again but never.

A whip cracks.

A dolorous chill, blood deep.

 

The cold speaks in my ear

And shows me

Countless heroes fallen

As far as Lancelot cowering in his keep.

And worse,

One who will never rise at all,

Defeated by the wintry muzzle of the dragon

At the roof of his mouth.

But beneath my freezing bones

I can see a half-spent furnace.

I reach in to fuel it even though

The coals sear my fingers.

The guttering light taunts me

With flame-licked visions of a golden age

Lost as surely as my life’s blood.  

 

I climb in.

 

As I burn, I see

Arthur, proud atop Llamrei. 

Just out of reach above my head.

She rears and I try 

to cry a charred fealty

but Arthur raises a forestalling hand

And catches the barbed whip.

King and knout crumble to ash.

 

I am alone.

 

I roll onto my back. 

The chapel is quiet now.

Neither Arthur 

Nor I 

Will return.

 

But I believe something

Someone

Better.

Will take our places.

 

I still believe that.

God, I still believe.

Even now.