Poison in the Marrow: Tenth Pale Knight

 

 

The Folly

The German Spy

 

 

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Poison in the Marrow

 

Now Trout had had an aunt

A woman inculcated with a fair education

Of course, one mustn’t laugh

No. There, but for the grace of…

She had spoken of burning one’s Rubicons behind one

He feels, coming to himself, the point is apt

A cruel temptation seems fingering his nape

He means to shrug it off

This mongrel thought

Jettisoning all of fealty that an oath

Should bind one

To…

 

The night is somewhat balmy

Soft Spring explodes in loamy odours

Advance notice of relentless greening

Of which the season, innocent

As a kitten with a mouse

Insists upon, insists upon

Chill and heat mix on the skin of a bead

Dew plays alike on Trout’s fevered brow

The vision sprouts anew

 

The creature had no words to tell

Spoke, the Pale Knight, in conjured sights

An atom draws unto itself an ocean

Plummets to the sky in a pillar of volcanic flame

Rains over earth an unseeable rain

That lodges a slow poison in the marrow

The seed has taken root

 

But still…and surely…by some means

The enemy has wrought these things

He ought to take the spool of film

And seal it tight

Not look to learn what workings of

what infernal device

He has captured there

That, by rights, is the major’s affair

And yet Trout knows he’ll not sit idle

Shirking mission in the belly of the whale

Through the night

He trials martyrdom…hangs himself and scans the mob

for sympathetic eyes

He can’t find hers

 

Oh mother mother make my bed

Oh make it soft and narrow

 

 

 

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Poison in the Marrow

Perhaps a Pair of Eyes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 (2018, Stephanie Foster)