The Sun King and Me

The Sun King peeled off 
A sheet of onion skin
And sent down a letter to me
He said I was just a farm boy
A rag tag urchin but now you see
That I am made of solar rays
I scatter the gold on the fields and the sea foam
And I invite you to come dancing by the shores
Of the endless sea where I roam.


Bring me my telephone, bring me my megaphone
Bring me my sceptre, 
Do you have the strength to hold on to the light-body of
A glowing ghostly specter

Every night when I go to sleep
I dip under the event horizon
And in the morning when I wake up
You are already bright and risin’
It’s all so beautiful
It’s all so perfect
It’s all so fitting
To join the endless trail of the
Sacred dancing children


Me and the sun king exchange words
On the boards of the bay
It’s she and he spinning ceaselessly
Infusing light into the grey grey
Day


Lightboxes, photographs, ouija boards 
Periscopes and unaddressed envelopes
Fingers on strings, slippery floors
And dime store rings
And rough paper words torn from
All of their shattered glass dreams
As Aphrodite she sighs mighty and the Sun King
Spins


The dance of the Sun King and the Queen of Discs
Reflected back at each other through
The lapping tides and trees and seeds of mist.
It’s he and she spinning endlessly
A family snapshot of 
                 the muse’s latest tryst. 

I wondered, wrote the Sun King, do you dance?
Do you know how to rise up like a lilac?
And fall into dry earth like a rose she tumbles into the dust?
Do you do the Lilly-putian, do you stomp like the giant in the briar? 
Do you smell the hyacinths streaming fragrance from their 
Hidden heavenly bower....


....breathing their sweet scent into the tomb of the slow dying hours?
Does the City open up before you spilling secrets and her
Grubby gutter flowers

"Sun King", I replied, to no one though I knew he was listening,
"I don’t know how to dance but I am a willing student
Send me counter clockwise spiraling into the realm of the spheres
Show me how you move and are reborn each year upon every year."

It’s the sun king and me spinning endlessly
Upon the air of the sugar spun sea
The grubby sea-urchin spinning forever grinning on the
Shore of that pale flat blue tifaine
Aphrodite bless me with the song of your shell
Let me bathe in your beauty and avoid
A season down in the depths of hell
Pink shrimp they dance in unison
Contracting and expanding as the seaweed drags me down
Moving and vibrating to the echo of that gentle drowning 
Undulating sound
Small fry and big kahuna landed from sea to ground
I am a vessel I am a shell I am a fragment of that wild thin
Reedy rebel yell

And as I watched the Woodsman marked
Another ancient tree for the fire and his axe it fell

2 Comments

  1. clcouch123 (poems)

    D–This reminds me of William Blake’s “Jerusalem.” Powerful and mystical. More powerful than Blake, really. I continue to read and, frankly, gather your work (keeping it at hand to go to). You continue to be an impressive essay writer who should be widely read. I only hope the life situation that you’ve made such fantastic choices to endure gets better and better.–Christopher

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