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Merlin on the Road

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOn yet another February day late
in that month of unforgiving earth,
the irregular beating of junco wings,
I rest on a fallen rock, the slab electric
with the brutality of bone cold,
and the sun fights with clouds,
fights to spotlight me, and loses,
as I have been losing all of my life,
as I have been battling, element
against element with the best intentions.

I have been walking for days.
Occasionally, I forget why. I left the road
yesterday—it was only broken dirt besides.
I can touch the horizon with a fingertip,
though everything resists—the dry
reeds sharp as arrows, tearing at my cloak,
dead vines like traps, the sounds
of buzzards chasing crows and crows
chasing starlings and starlings decaying
under the residue of leaf clump and snow.

If it were up to me, I would throw away
this robe. I would return to a civilized place,
take up position as mortal, grab the first fair woman
or not fair that came by and wrap her
hair around my arm, reeling her in to me
and I would hold her against
the alley wall and hope her breath might
burn into me, through me, through both of us
till the husk only remains, the bones,
the crumbling, precious human at the core

–Shaun Perkins

This is an older poem that I wrote as a series of poems about Arthurian characters. I revised it this morning and intend to do more revisions of the rest of the poems. Reading them again, I realize they are better than I remember them being. I am sometimes surprised at the things I’ve written.

By the way…..if you click on the picture link, you can go to a page where you can buy me that wonderful $600 book. Yar! You can consider it a tax-free donation to the museum if you want!



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