Canto VI

The harsh light of dawn wept

My kingdom in ruins

The cavalry disbanded

My jewels stolen in the night

Out! these secrets I kept

Like Sultan’s sand to dunes

So costly peace demanded

That I kneel without fight

Now, a lord in squalor

I am only humbled

No great fascination,

No bright inclination,

Nor sharp observation

Could deride this manor

To which I had stumbled

A woman’s disfigured face

My own pathetic disgrace

And a boy whose thoughts had been replaced

Tore me to Saint Le-Mon

Upon the homely knocker

That guarded Ms Farebell’s stead

The bust of a lame Docker

Which to my intellect read

Nay had it heard a murmur

Mr Farebell ever shed

A woman in veil ushered me in

Beneath her panting, secretive mask

An offended frown engulfed her grin

“Please, do not take my features to heart,”

She explained without hesitation

“They express no more than Cubic art”

By curiosity came horror

To recognise That without order

Decrypting the forbidden message

That spoke of misfortune most savage:

Upon her brow, a mark, most acute

That struck the trumpets of my heart mute

The iconic feature of her dead

Husband’s business, on his ring of Wed

Knowing too much I could hear no more

And directed myself to Mark’s door

Under the auspices of a dishonest knock

I breached the pathology of psyche in shock

As far as my eyes could see, or my mind could bare

Were fragments stacked in segments, of Marcus’ affairs

Squatting in the centre in an Indian form

Young Marcus was weeping, through some ritual mourn

With strength

And endurance

But mostly drama

I sewed the stitches

In my mask

“Marcus,” I began

And his head shot up

Not out of recognition

But out of shock

“You… You” he accused

On the tip of tongue

Through the fragments he searched

Slamming his palms

“I know you,” musing

Not reality

But the weakened connections

Between his ears

“Doctor-” I began

“You” he resumed

His eyes glazed a fiery haze

Scorching my tomb

“Long had I feared

Your presence and tone

My bloody eyed fiend

Your voice strangled moans”

In the ordinary language

I knew our Marcus had gone mad

His disposition and rare glow

Bore every incantation

Of the transient, hollow mind

Flowing from without, ebb to flow

Ebb to flow

His words, knowing without meaning

Without meaning

And as if a trail of horrid insects aligned

Between the insane boy and I

And through his delusion he knew the meaning of this sign

He drew a sharpened file

And pounced

To foot

In the air

And down

Bringing his muscles

Onto my collar

Wringing out

Every last pigment

To whiten

His reddened face

“Marcus,” I pleaded

“You do not understand

Your mind is pure

Your thoughts your own

I made this so

I am your cure!”

Like bile it rotted

His fragile grin

So malevolent

“You daft quack,

You maniac!

How little you know

And how far you’ll go

To show the world

It’s yours to sew!”

He struck like the serpent

Of Original Sin

“You murdered my brother

And my hatred harden!

My name is not Marcus

I am Stephen”

He drew the file high,

And when his energy spent,

I fear to admit

That this is the end.