Chamberlain
in a vision
the chamberlain and the civil heroes
tasked me to sit you in a room
brown and beautiful as earth itself
and all the plangent madders of its colour deep
surround you on the floor
and while the foreign woman yelped
down to down the noise
and belted on the hollow floor
you moved like shadows of a cloud
but under two suns
so your image flickered
in one guise a head both
young and older
reveal conceal its appetency
but flat as if in two dimensions
like images on an ancient film
and in the second incarnation
the gin your body made itself
holds while you move
the perimetry of a flashing arc
one face full of beauty
the other full of quest and sorrow
i know they will return
thank me for it was no mortal task
but i thank you for the image fleeting
though it was
for now i have the armour
close at hand
and grief and spear
and most the dagger
to stride the storeys
and to slay the yelling hag above
to lace her head
and hang its swinging lumpen
mass
from the old oak branch
like a church bell call to crows and rooks
whose mystic rites
are culled from civil heroes
whose chamberlain is cloaked
so do i to leave this vision house
its madder walls
its solid brick and timber build
as i closed the door
i fumbled for the key
and found it gone