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OBSESSION
The
boat is on the sand, the prints washed out
that
told of our retirement to the cave.
The
boat is rotting—cannot expedite
another
slow retreat or island’s raid.
We
three are stranded in a staring room
and
no one’s sure which other has a knife,
and
no one dares to sleep for fear he dream
the
other two have fed him to the tides.
First
there’s a lettered drunk; equipped with lies
he’s
roved the heaven seas of drink, appalled
all
the mild angels, and gambled God to lose.
Now,
tired of exaggerated talk,
he
spits at the gross Neptune of his loss
and
joins the bawdier parables of sleep.
The
sober truth would never give release,
The
salt jest in the tankard’s far more deep.
Then
there’s a saint who in one book confines
the
world of men like whispers in a shell.
He
builds his chambers high above the fens
and
traces what the arid stars foretell—
the
stars of dust the pounding ages squeezed
from
liquored flesh and grief-corrupted bones;
and
from the love of man with which he’s crazed
he
builds a shrine where no man dares to go.
And
lastly there’s a fool who crossed the sea
to
search out spice and trinkets for a whore;
while
hearing fretful what the others say
he
yearns for ships to touch his lonely ashore.
He
thinks of conquest and of sacrifice,
the
grapes of flesh and gifts of conquered pride,
the
moons of blood which years of it deface
and
cries that go across it when he dies.
The
knowing drunk, the saint and bitter fool
sit
in their cave and guard an empty cape;
around
its beaten coasts the tempests fill
the
mounting sea; they cannot now escape.
Left
in this cave with these three men of mine
I
dare not go to sleep for fear they fight.
And
there is no way out because the moon
pulls
up the high sea’s wall and makes it night.
In
this high night of storms there is no sleep,
and
every man in his abandoned home
dreams
wide-awake with this upon his lips:
‘These
staring men are all I’ll ever know.’
Alan
Marshfield
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