The New Death and others (17 page)

They held them for the mob to take

and said, "the strongest armor made

will be as paper to this blade."

And truth to tell they seemed to share

all virtues that a blade could bear:

as sharp as spite yet light as smoke

and longing for the killing stroke

as eager to find flesh, or more,

as usurers to find the poor.

Each handle was of emerald glass

in strength and lightness unsurpassed

and those who raised it to their eye

beheld the world all falsified.

Each crewman seemed a corpse decayed

suspended in a sea of jade.

---

They sailed towards their mother-isle

with eager hearts and wolfish smiles

and in the hours when they slept

lay all together on the deck

as chaste as corpses gone to dust

the thirst for blood their only lust.

A priest awoke and shrilly screamed

from dying in his fearful dream

and when his brothers asked him why

he said, "It is our time to die.

I dreamed the sea brought forth a beast

that longed to gorge on every priest."

Each took a staff and woven mat

and walked down to the beach and sat.

They waited till the dawn's first glow

lit up the land and sea, and lo!

they saw the coming ship and knew

the dreadful dream was coming true.

They drank a brew whose subtle art

would banish fear then stop the heart.

They placed the idol by the sea

where legend said he loved to be

and when the eldest gave a nod

picked up a rock and killed their god.

---

When Diamanda's ship arrived

no single priest remained alive

and if her crew bore other blades

they would have called the island saved

and wondered at their luck--but no.

Their weapons would not have it so.

One raised his blade and saw therein

another man, who looked like him

yet had a finer, fiercer cast:

himself, but loved and feared at last.

A man grown strong where he was weak

who gave him pride and strength to
speak.

"These priests have gone where all must
go

and who will pay the debt they owe?

Who stayed at home in safety while

we shivered on some strangers' isle?

The shepherd's rule lasts not a day

unless the witless herd obey.

"For each dead priest are nine times
nine

who did their will and shared their
crime!"

All cheered the sermon loud and long

held high their blades--and how they
shone!

They shuddered with a bestial thrill

and hungrily went forth to kill.

They showed no more regret or shame

than if they hacked through sugar-cane.

Each anguished cry for mercy fell

like stones that drop into a well

to lie beneath the depths unseen

and leave no sign that they have been.

Both blade and flesh were bathed in red

in murdered blood from foot to head

so that they seemed more demon-spawn

than human flesh of woman born.

Then with the setting of the sun

it came to them what they had done.

---

And each one groaned aloud with guilt

to think of all the blood they spilt.

They tried to wipe the blood away

as if to cancel out the day

well knowing that the greater stain

was on their soul, and that remained.

Then each one heard an inner voice

that whispered of a grisly choice.

It hissed, "Of course, you went along

but were you author of this wrong?

Behold those fiends in human form

who drip with murdered gore still warm."

"The babe in arms, the maiden fair

the childhood friend--not one was
spared.

Was this an end that you would choose

or was your love of freedom used

to blind your heart and cruelly cloak

the wicked plans of wicked folk?

"But quickly now; your blade is daubed

like every other in the mob.

They still believe you in their spell.

You may yet send them all to Hell.

Refuse to be these devils' thrall.

Take up your blade and kill them all."

The voice was soft, yet hard as steel

and wore them down like grinded meal

until each hand picked up their blade

and every guilty arm obeyed.

As steel met steel the clanging ring

held subtle tones of snickering.

---

In Telelee there stood a square

and each day merchants haggled there

but one night when the market closed

it knew no silence or repose.

The elephants in Telelee

were heard to trumpet joyfully.

(back to contents)

++++

Sigrun and the Shepherd

Once upon a time, in the great city of
Telelee, there lived a woman named Sigrun. Every weekday morning
she said goodbye to her husband, and made her way to work. She
worked at the top of a high tower at the edge of the city. There
she copied old books onto new paper, in case the original was
destroyed. This tower was so high that climbing it was a job in
itself. And in fact there were a team of apes, white mountain
gorillas who liked nothing better than scrambling up and down steep
slopes, whose job was to carry Sigrun up the winding staircase.
There were only two sets of rooms in the whole tower. There were
rooms right at the bottom, where the gorillas lived. And there were
rooms right at the top, where Sigrun worked. And why they made the
tower this way no one knew, unless it was to give the gorillas
something to do. At the end of the day Sigrun would take her
parachute and jump out the window, drifting slowly home. For it was
an ancient custom of the gorillas that they would only carry
burdens upwards, never down. From her office Sigrun could look down
at the city, or at the fields beyond the city walls. And when she
did this, she felt like she was a bird. So perhaps there was some
reason for the tower being so high after all.

One day Sigrun was looking out the window and
noticed a shepherd tending his flock by the city walls. There were
white sheep, whose wool would make white jumpers, and black sheep
whose wool would make black jumpers, and tartan sheep whose wool
would make kilts. The shepherd kept a special eye on the white
sheep, because the wind might think they were clouds and try to
blow them away. He seemed to Sigrun to be unusually strong and
tender. In Telelee all shepherds are kind-hearted (those that
aren't have to go to angora management classes. Anyway, bullies are
all cowherds at heart). Sigrun turned back to her work, and when
she looked out the window again hours later she was a little sad to
see that the shepherd was no longer there.

Over the next few weeks she saw the shepherd
several times. She noticed that he was about her age. Unlike her
husband he had no bald spot. He had a habit of singing to himself,
or to the sheep. Although she could hardly hear it, Sigrun thought
his voice was clear and sweet. Then one day the shepherd looked up
at the high tower and smiled. Sigrun was shocked. She had never
thought that the shepherd might be able to see her too. For the
rest of the day she did not look out the window, and her hand shook
as she held her quill. The next time the shepherd looked upwards,
Sigrun was sure he could see her.

After that Sigrun would not just watch the
shepherd, but would also smile and wave to him. Sometimes she
thought he saw her, and sometimes not. He seemed, from what she
could see, to have many attributes her husband lacked.

As she was being carried up the stairs,
Sigrun asked the gorilla that carried her if it knew the shepherd,
and if so what it thought of him. The gorilla only grunted. Sigrun
thought the gorilla sounded like it was interested in hearing about
the shepherd. After that she made sure to talk about him each
morning.

Sigrun and her husband began to argue. After
their arguments she wished she was sitting in her tower looking out
the window, instead of sitting at home. Then there came a day when
the shepherd did not appear for three days in a row. On the third
day Sigrun felt tears pushing at her eyes, trying to get out. It
was then she decided to leave her husband and go to the
shepherd.

This decision made, Sigrun no longer argued
with her husband. She felt sorry for him. She wore her best
clothing every day. At last the shepherd and his flock again
appeared in the fields. At the end of the day Sigrun took her
parachute and jumped out the window as usual. But this time she did
not aim for her house in the city, but for the fields. She came out
of the sky like an angel, and landed before the shepherd.

"It's me," she said.

"Who are you?" he replied.

(back to contents)

++++

The Morning Post

He turned on the radio. It was the mime hour.
He turned down the volume, but that just made the mime clearer.

He looked at his mail. He'd been invited to a
bondage party. He couldn't go: he was tied up. Anyway the last time
he went to a swingers' party some guy accused him of not looking at
his girlfriend.

There was an invitation to a family reunion.
His great-great grandfather had been kicked out of Ireland for not
starving. When he came to America he met up with an Englishman and
a Scotsman. They got a job walking into bars to give comedians
ideas. During Prohibition they joined the Amish and walked into
barns.

But there was nothing from her. There never
was. He hadn't spoken to her, nor she to him, in over ten years.
Well over ten years really. Actually his entire life. He'd never
seen her either. Also she didn't exist. Sometimes he thought he
made things too hard for himself.

He turned off the radio. But now the mime was
stuck in his head. He'd be whistling silently for days.

(back to contents)

++++

My Cat Is Not Like Other
Cats

It's come to my attention that

my cat is not like other cats.

While other cats will rub your leg

to leave their scent or else to beg;

while other cats will stalk you when

they think you might have food for them;

while other cats jump on your bed

and take a catnap on your head

because they have decided you're

a little warmer than the floor;

my cat does all of the above

but my cat does it out of love.

(back to contents)

++++

The Handsome But
Impossibly Demanding Prince

Once upon a time there was a handsome prince
who let it be known that he intended to get married.

Soon there was a queue of young women
stretching around the palace and down the street. But the first
young woman was too short. The second young woman was too tall. The
third was too fat, and the fourth was too thin. Too old, too young,
too funny-looking--there was something wrong with all of them.

At last he sent away the final young woman
(whose eyes were too close together). For days the prince sat sad
and alone, and cried. He spilled so many tears that a salt river
flowed through the palace.

"O prince," he mused to himself, "no mortal
woman is good enough for you. Perhaps you need a goddess." At this
thought he brightened immediately. "Of course! But where would I
find a goddess?" After some thought, he decided that the best place
to look would be on the peak of the highest mountain.

So the prince set off for the highest
mountain. He climbed for many days. It was so cold the water of his
bowels turned to ice. As the cold gnawed at him from without,
loneliness gnawed from within. But when he reached the peak, there
was nothing there but an old man, blind and crippled.

"Old man, where are the gods?" the prince
asked.

"I am a god," replied the old man. "As for
the others, they all left, thousands of years ago, to fight a war
against the gods of another world. After all this time I cannot
recall exactly what was said. But it was a terrible insult that
could only be wiped out in blood. I, being blind and crippled, was
of no use. And so I wait here for their return."

"After all this time, do you not think that
they may all have died?" asked the prince.

"I think of little else. I am certain that
their corpses float in the black aether. But then I think to
myself, what if I leave and they come back? Millennia of waiting
will have been for nothing. And so I stay."

The prince took his leave of the god and
descended the mountain. The god struck the prince as being like
himself; waiting for something that will never arrive.

"I will wait no longer," he said out loud.
"Indeed, I will marry the first one who asks." Alas for the prince,
a rock heard him.

"In that case, O prince, I ask you to marry
me," said the rock.

The prince was dismayed. But honor compelled
him to obey his oath and accept. For many years he lived with the
rock. He never had a single good night's sleep, since marital duty
required him to sleep with the rock in his bed.

At last the rock was split by lightning, and
the prince buried it.