The Fabulist (edit 3)

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The Fabulist

The fabulist wears a mask
ragged with laughter
but if you listen to his eyes
they tell you he's not joking.

His jack-in-the-knife fable          
turns in a groove of lies
where lunacy and rhyme
lay the heretics in a row.

For the scarecrow believers 
his words fill the sky.
They hang on his periods
wander the pauses in his breath.

Between the fabulist’s wrist
and his unspoken name
worlds are made and unmade
cutting across unready nerves
burning cities in your brain.

The Fabulist

The fabulist wears a mask,
laughs easily, but his eyes
tell you he’s not joking.

His jack-in-the-knife fables          
turn in a groove of lies
where lunacy and rhyme
lay the heretics in a row.

For the scarecrow believers 
his words fill the sky.
They hang on his periods
wander the pauses in his breath
until his kingdom is come.

Between the fabulist’s wrist
and his unspoken name
worlds are made and unmade
cutting across unready nerves
burning cities in your brain.




Poem for Philip

The fabulist wears a mask,
laughs easily, but his eyes
tell you he’s not joking.

When the fix is in, look
beyond the tricks of his eyes
where lunacy and rhyme
lay the suicides in a row.

Between the fabulist’s wrist
and his unspoken name
worlds are made and unmade
across fields of unready nerves
forming cities in your brain.