Mark Smith

The Quadrumvirate


I

     The winds have been taken from the sky, no doubt. If I had a fate
     before, perhaps that fate
     was better hidden; not so within the white eyes of the blue-cloaked-old Man.
     The Mystic dreams.
     Hooded, shrouded.
     Living  seconds ahead, in a slump.
     Standing before the green and brown folds of the country,
     moving                    through me, acting through my              fingertips,
     never manifesting.


II

The streets are lit by a half-light. The Lady comes to a decision by the crossing.
She too, like the elder lives on the borders, visibly fazing in and out of frozen realism and expectation
I                     share the same face, stony
and unwilling. I            share the same hands, steady, warm.
I’m guided over the rippling slick white skin of my lover oblivious
dancing with fond amusement. Blankly,
hers is weighed down heavy, before she consumes them, 'till no more
shadow can be spared


The dark road is the journey most travelled. I change shades and
graces with each changing
light of the breaking sky, glides with a stiff coldness
by her labours. How quickly she forgot
our sallow face, my old hands. Now the Lady wallows
in the musky nostalgia amongst
unread books and unchecked
photographs.  Hers is the quarter of barren perversion, sometimes,
the blackened waters of seduction, loved
only as a mystery. Misery is preferred, the warm
burrow where worms grow
moonstruck and unsettled with the voices of unreason uttering, willing submission
forcing closure in a place where I cannot step outside my footsteps.
Romanticism vanishes herself
on the wet matted leaves of the earth,and gives her body
to the ground –
if only for a time.


III

Oh, the energy!                                                                     Boundless, invigorating!
                                   The fizzle, the ruckus                          Scatter-
              -ing kinetics in the nodes of the bones!                                -Shot                up
And calm.
                                                         DISCHARGE! Fireworks biding behind the elbows
                                                         And joints! The moon is so vicious,
                       Felt behind the obscuring smog             Sharp    teeth    short lived
                                                 But so alive   passionately    BURNING
Degenerated,
                                            but feet, pounding.                   Chest, pounding,
The world is waking to   the madmen
                      Flared nostrils,                 furrowed brow                fervours shaking
                                                                                         Succulent aroma
                      Craving, a need to consume, consume, devour
                                                       Oh, Manic! There's genuine laughter, a belly of
                         PURE GLEE        and the DESIRE      to absorb everything      ....!


                                                                   And a mind to COMPREHEND all they know and see–
                                                                         (Which is nothing at all that interesting.)


IV

If I don’t know where I’m going, I won’t know who I am.
I’m you as I see you. Unfortunately, the Great British Seaside isn’t as enjoyable anymore.
If it is simple, it is good. To the Child, the world is a very big place, despite its size


Fathers can make good children. If I’m not absent minded, I’m waiting to be filled,
                                                                                               a clean slate.
Sometimes the quiet is nice. Sometimes the silence is sad. I hold the serenity in my arms and rock it
                                                                                                                                to noise.
Most of the time, my hands are too small to hold the world.