The hermit-monk sat smoking.        the young boy,
having ridden long from the West     his spurs and armor
glistening the eyes of harems in Damascus     driving the
untouchables crazy near New Delhi     catching Guinevere    
naked, bathing in the Ohio (She blew him a kiss that ended
his world)    having conquered Eve    slain Lilith beneath the sheets of blue skies and seas
laid waste to Leviathan in a bar one night (he remembered
her naked scales,  peeling back each one until he uncovered the pink skin)
he snuck Helen from Troy  to see her golden locks blow over her *******
in the summer time,

but the egg of the world he was walking on would
not accept him entrance, and to **** the dirt sounded unthinkable
and got Uranus castrated,
so that was out

in Brittany, long a year had passed before the death of our  lord and our other king,

the cup would not accept his lips, and the lovely boy whom the cup accepted
first would not accept his lips either, and anyway, he crumbled up in ash flakes
and died, being carried to heaven  by the angels one night: his son dead, his king dead, and
the lord, there were no men to love and yet he remained the ghost of the night,
his blood-soaked (and blood-thirsty) sword slaying water-dragons for a time, the courage of defeat defied him
and would not put him to bed with his king and lord, so he wandered until death
would claim him, but it refused him, for a man without purpose does not die in
flesh but in soul

the hermit-monk with his great eyebrows and one eye sat staring, dirtily rolling cigarettes
his bath robe, bleached pink with holes        It was my day off, he said, turning over Lancelot with
his wise eye and wise tooth       What brings you this noon, when the cranes fly without love,
and the crows fly without ‘why?’

I love a woman who haunts me, he replied
Though that is long gone by
and for now and all time
she haunts me at night.
In the pale moon light
her ghosts come in shade
to bury me alive— in the living air.
Sometimes four or five images of her at a time.
She lives on though she dies.
She carries me through the night,
a golden calf with blond-ash hair.
We fly! Oh, how we fly! She refuses
to drop me and let me die
when we fly, fly, fly!
The perfect angel of death.
The death muse.
She has never been born, and she will
not die in my mind. She has never lived at all
so she cannot be killed and never will.
I want to die. I want to die. I cannot.
She is a perfect angel and no one can
be her.

the hermit-monk replied with his one blind eye     opening up his one
black patch, he showed the young man a hole—
a hole that was an abyss—
an abyss that was a heart—
a heart that was a kiss—
a kiss between two lovers that never
was    and   never
           were

And will it never be? asked the young man

Desire never is. Love never was in the heart of man. Maybe to conquer
her mountains for a time, that is what love is. Maybe it was to plant
your flag in her valley. To roll your lips over that spine and hips of
the earth. But time will fix you. Make you nothing more than the ghost you
seek—
the ghost that never is,
and so shall you never be.

and for a time, he rode on with this in mind, knowing to lie down and die
is what he had to do, but still she came at night, cloaked in white,
holding two flowers in each hand,
one a daisy of continuous clocks, the other,
not quite a rose and nothing like a rose
but what one might think a rose
around her head were thorns, like the thorns of Jesus Christ,
she held out her hand for a time, wanting him to come to her in the night
strip himself of his armor, so she could love him and **** him within a time

she wore the vessel of the lord around her neck, a gold chain held it,
wrapped it like a tube tied       in it was wine      in the wine was blood
the blood of a child        the child had been given to a mother by God
but God took that child and said, never mind.
that mother cried for she didn’t care about matters of state, or lenders in a
temple     she loved that child, and that child died, being crucified by the world—
a man taking the sacrifice of a woman for the world

in this vision Lancelot cried      God’s worst holy man       God’s best k(night).
and every night, pressed against her dead breast, he would cry,

I want to die! I want to die!

Not yet, she would reply.
Not yet, she would reply.

but in his heart he knew she meant, not ever
for she was his mind     they belonged together—
as ghosts stalking the night, unable to die for the lord

This was his charge.

and some say at night, in the hither lands he rides
undead, undying, forever searching for the girl in his mind,
who haunts his nights with dreams of sleep, but still he awakes
every morning,
alive, unrested , undead