In the Castle of the King

Here now.

The unwashing, the unwilling washed. The computer-illiterate and the coding whizzes. Some with heads in books, some heads in clouds, some heads half-on or not-on-really-at-all.

A thousand languages: fictional and fine alike.

The stragglers, the unstinting hagglers. The losers, the ill-thinkers and the brooding misfits. Rent with haggard hooks, rent yet still proud, rent but belonging. Here, simply. And, more,

A thousand thousand stories: tunnels to minds alive

Here now.

These bricks.

Clay, concrete, powdering one day. Holding in the knowledge. Holding out too. A bastion. Maybe a battlement. Maybe a haven. Maybe none, maybe all

These things are hard to reconcile, depending which

Way the political bounders will sway. Holding onto spirites which hold our few attractions: maybe a befuddlement. Maybe a heaven. Maybe all will fall,

These bricks.

So still

Pounded by the gouging minds of mudruck-progress. Pounded by efficiency, cutbacks, gristle. Pounded and bent. But not broken. But not smashed. Here the call,

Hear the call, in its infinite transience. Variation

Founded through space, time, a fumble-witness astounded by intensity. Call back, whistle: no grounded descent but an open, cut-throat hack at them, all

So Still,

Waiting

And – why? And while we wait we think. We think we have time to wait; but the knowing of the moment is the key. The way. The unforgiving distance

Run. No future, no past, for all under

Stand why futile restraints are sickly. Since Ahab’s fight, the whale’s country showed him that the sea-descent sets you free. Today. The underpinning resonance;

Waiting.

So still.

Hounded through facetime, a grumble-sickness unfounded by necessity, Google’s bristle of growling intent toward doped-up, dumbo-facts. But then, still

Here, a halting, specific sentience of a nation

Astounded by the spicy signs that undercut success. Bounded by a misery so black; a thistle-down malevolent song for the trashed, for us all

So Still.

These bricks

Play the part. Physical boundaries still stay, folding into sites which hold our new distractions. Shining in the firmament, daily a rhythm, daily and daily toward

These things that mark out the endless file of endings which

Play, soul-sweet murmurings as they soar within their passage. Bold, free, stout aromas belong fully to settlements heavy or brazen, daily songs a call to

These bricks.

Here now.

The strugglers, the unstinting jabberers. The bruisers, the still-inkers and the grooving artists seeking Odin’s rooks, tenets bestowed, instant and buzzing. Here, simply adored,

A thousand languages. Passionate, with minds alive

For unwrapping, the shelf-filling staff in the library grasp minutiae as standard. Each morning fizzes along with steady, locked-and-ready crowds, requests for tomes half-known, for books or advice or to talk

About those thousand thousand stories. Wonders for minds alive

Here now.