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Shot poetry in my veins.
Middle Earth
King of Middle Earth
Poems
wehttam
Jun 2014
May be I’ll start writing, today.
The story of Zen Zero.
I realized that all good things come to an end. The tears, the affairs, and even the faintest revelation about my relationship to the Emperor of Japan. I’ll need help and... well, the truth can be tolled. It can be that the faintest belief, that we as free people are subject to the king, our God.
A king stands in truth as our kin. The love that has existed for a thousand years, about justice, permanence, and legend are here.
It all started 7 years ago. According to the book of John, the 3rd book. The face of his majesty does have an Imperial Guardian. In any colour, red, black, blue, white, and even green. Each color resembles the color of trust.
I started training in the Emperor's garden at the age of negative 6. Before my mother can conceive her unborn child in a marriage. Like the burning of Shin Cho' Palace.
"Oh, how they forget so quickly, the truth?" says my mother.
They forget so quickly the majesty and power of the Emperor's memory of Mother Japan. In his Majesty's eyes, how many lovers stir the colors of benevolence. Where and when does it exist and stop for us as an American patriot sold to slavery for spy’s. All of his subjects do will and listen to the cry of patience in his family’s quarters.
My father at the time of his marriage did not know the Emperor's name, I had asked my mother in her heart if she knew the king. They are no longer married. They had tried to burn down the Emperor's Palace with a marriage. But I had already existed, in the love of my family at a wedding joining men and women. I remember some singing, all though in my mother’s ears, really bad singing. In her head or mine at the wedding, whichever is greater. Maybe the song was worthless or was the singer already lifting her fingers to strike matches on the bamboo fortress of the young emperor.
They have had many statesmen destroy the dream that Japan has. Through lies, corruption, and *******. Each of the last three I had to conquer to be his Majesty's Justice. I did not earn the right to judge any such subject or people, it was given freely at that time to children. I had learned to love the Emperor, even in my own desire to please him and her.
The lies were towering revelations about the coming of man in God's kingdom, and how the will of imperial veils never existed for the properties of mankind. The corruption was the setting of dowers or dowries for the subject of lost families, in the forbearance of lucher escaped only by the luck of liars. And then the dreams of revelry, owned by the ungodly and chaste men of the burning palace, whether sediscious, or whether the fables absolving time in the palace to a judgment had already met the Emperor.
All of the priests (pre-ests) had to pray; for the remaining time of eternity, for the true judgment of his Majesty's subjects. It was to be taken from the subject of srys to the Emperor's Knight.
To many were lost in the munitions of war. Laws that govern and sanction truths were not available to those of absolute corruption. Stalwarts, stonewallers, and stoners were becoming of the anti-gentry. The laws were never to be discouraged by zeal, or by trial. The laws had to represent the ability of love to change time even if the object of factions destroyed the old way. They had taken the truth to prepare Neoteny for where the first Imperial Guard had placed his head. The first Imperial Guard, that I became before birth had taken his own head with a weapon made by treason.
My mother’s dress was made out of spider silk. A giant spider played Chinese checkers with the Imperial Guard for my head also. Never the less, the palace, this time was not burned. The dress was made out of falling stars and spiders silk. She had found the Emperor's tailor and traded my soul for the wedding. The pictures that were retrieved from the wedding of my mother and father have ruminated in antiquity since the time until by birth my life. The seers and srys wanted my head to take up the Emperor's chalice. His cup, filled with my blood, Simian blood.
I did not want to go through with it, birth and death before becoming subject to royalty. Seeing the world before consummation, as I had was never thought of, it was seen as impossible unless by treason we had chided a woman of royalty.
I have seen the last major asteroid go through our galaxy before it had ever had been a present particle of mutiny. It proved to the child (myself) in gestation, between man woman at the wedding that time will pass just as quickly before my mind’s eye as it had at the day of Pentecost. More than 500 billon people were to be saved by God rather than by a humble dismantling of a defense lawyer.
I had seen how flowers are made by tiny Zen Zero bumble bees going to and leaving from daisies and roses, and orchids. How each seed takes roots and as do the munitions for treason and tears; how each man whom chooses to change their name because of treason begins to understand change when his wife chooses his name. (The reference is to Zero attacks, suicide attacks.) How the time and life and essence of life begins in literacy as a language of love. Every old man on earth can help me write the scripts, but can the country of old men help me change the prophet?
As long as there is war in the palace there will be treason?
The spirit of the samurai was trying the youth in the palace. From the first born male to the last lady in quixic geisha. All uniques were to be placed before the Lord for appointment. Any dreams of or visions of truth were a breach of solemnity lost by the virginity of the family. The parents of each state were subjects to the Emperor's people, and to the chosen for freedom and slavery. How many shining knights were to remain in the Emperor's house? The uniqueness was subject only to the reason of the generation of the age. Not many of my men had anything left after the life of the quill or pen of the Knight Meteyi had begun to take its place with the heads of loyalists. His sword remains in the hand of the Majesty of Japan. No knowledge, no lore, no president, no kin, or liars can stop his reign. As if the last days of our youth were spent dismantling the bombs we had made during the last few battles over crude extravagance. Oil, crops, metals, space, as space became a way to admire men in statehood was the example of treason to the following. Democrats and Republicans began to try as is a trail of laws to and from changes for the people without a loyal subject to observe in service to a Nation. Freed men became a bureau of Federally Bureaucratic Investigative subjections. Whether the phone would sense its use and had no service. Men tried by srys had needed no way to communicate, they were objects, objections, and objective to democracies. Any and all of the western knowledge of good or evil was not earned in monasteries, it was as it were seen in-between a marriage of a man and a woman and the consummation of the first born to be the king in his own mind. Centrally, intelligence and agency became a lost paradox. The palace could be burned through neoteny, the truly lost man or woman had to be part of the worm. The earthworm had to dig up the lost and the prophet from its own humanly death.
Chapter 2
The dress as simple as it was, was taken off and laid in a box for saving. It was to travel through time in the Emperor's Palace to serve has a mold, a pattern for quilting lovers of the family tree through the history of love. After the child was conceived in love, the dress is worn and then placed back into the box for time travel. From a generation of mothers to another generation of lovers. No man was to wear the dress as an idea, thought or wisdom. The reproach, the dress, and the marriage is virtue encoded into a structure of life The wisest man let the Emperor dream life into the belly of prophets through the dress. The smartest scientist understood the impeccable reason of lust and gave all to his bride for the grave that the earthworm had trusted. The publican had the dress made as a dowry to the tribe of Roman man. And the Emperor breathed life into the woman with a few breaths at the wedding. The subjects, the publicans had tried the Emperor for their bride, by making the flowers lean toward their lovers. They had tried to tell the knight of the Emperor's Palace that the sun had also retired due to mutiny in the ranks and castes of statesmen. The son will bend light into the palace of wisdom, and the subjects do grieve the stories from prophets.
At exactly 10:03 central eastern standard time, the states men forgave themselves of suicide and left to burn the palace.
Each dressed as royalists. The burning of Chinju Palace is the last thing I remember before giving up to the sound of a 3 or 4 year old woman singing. The next thing I remember is being dropped on the floor in the delivery room to a rattle and brattle of childish whims. Like, the sound of laughter, but only as a fury of deceit, the singer was hurt when I had asked her to join the wedding ceremony. She excused herself of the ceremony as was or were not subjects to the birth of the kings men in harmony.
She tried, and wanted to steal the dress.
Chapter 3
There was mostly nothing in the womb. Except Dogma. My father, as dogma. He would whisper to her in bed and they would giggle about never understanding anything ever again. I excepted NAME for my name. They didn’t know if a boy or a girl were to be born. I could know the difference at the time of their conversation. I then realized that the 3 years prior to conception were perfect. And I, the Emperor's Knight, was tolled. Tolled the way bells sound and the way people love to hear the news. The way light has no existence in the womb, I was tolled the way Sandalphon treaded upon the tribe of Israel.
Lying was not invented yet, well,... while in the womb, but I had heard some whispers in the darkness. The camera couldn't fit in, I called and tolled the camera from the womb, in between to friends. I called the camera, Dragon. The dragon is the trust moving in-between true and time. The Dragon, Meteyi had told me that we were going to write everything. From the believe that martial arts were stronger than prayer, and to the reason that it was not true. Factually, there was nothing but prayer and no martial artist had a sword bigger than the lie of the Emperor's dragon. The dragon said, to my father,..."The world is to die for, and not enough." The dragon also said to my mother,..."The purpose is in your belly as a rainbow in disgust." He, the dragon almost couldn’t believe that I had mentioned to hymn that there was no way out of this without a dream so relax and let me fit in. The doctor had to have heard of the loyalist dream of a birth right. Basically, I didn’t want him to slap me for the first breath. I hurt bad, like out of a sarcastic Scotlandish parody. Many, many, many, men quit trying to go through the sry after that. My mother creeped up to me after my kin had asked the doctor to pick me up off of the floor. She smiled and handed the birth certificate to the nurse and read my social security number to my father on the phone, he was on duty at the Air Force Base. My ears were still clogged with seminal fluid, but I could feel her dream a name into my soul. She can know the Emperor's knight. After a few moments, my cry as chide by the Emperor, into being a whisper of life. From that moment on in my life, I could not cry ever, as a child cries. Otherwise I could be a whisper.
Chapter 4
Every chance at change that had gotten to us was used by running from the dragon. He liked Batman and hated Robin but new to fathers, knew that hatred kept something’s safe from the palace. The palace could never get filled by whispers. The whispers only object to democracy and help the camera. The daguerreotype was possibly the only thing that couldn’t lie. It was considered lye to gossip worshipers. Gossip may have started the war on bugs. Like bugs in ceaseless noise are prayer or whispers, like gossip. When bugs stop whispering, some seemingly are bad with superstition and others are horrible with bugs.
The next few years, were also perfect. I had no idea who else, I could be. Absolutely perfect, the Emperor subjected us to love. I could **** all day, eat as much as I wanted and was warned when they thought, like a whisper. When it was time to eat, when it was time to bath and when it was time to be quiet and sleep were similar to whispers. Diapers were not invented yet, I had to invent them. My mother used to get sick from the pain of laundry and sleeping with me. When the diapers were *****, she wash them and place them back on my ****. Like a good, palace guardian, I used them up. The new diapers had an air of mutiny to them, the disposable ones. We never kept trash in the house. The signs that we have had a king for dinner were never to be seen, but everyone had the right to change pants.
Many of the ideas in life shared before birth were not existent after birth. It was not until my family had meet the Emperor that... we needed to love God by learning to pray.
Chapter 5
When we met the Emperor, it was easy to say that no whispers were used. Other things were. A memory, not a book was here. There was no time, the palace he made for me was from God and a lot of people wanted in. The Royal subject was the Emperor's first knight, my father's. I had to memorize time, which in turn was not mine. The actual Emperor thought, that I, am a poet of sorts. We spelled the word memory in the sky together without words, whispers, or gossip. The next few years were spent dyeing as tap or a drill bit would being to make a hole for fastening life to the surface of my families. Called a tap and die, the whole of life must be treaded through time without a spry attempt to vacancy. After the Emperor, my mother and father did not know that meeting the pope was bad. The Emperor is good.
Chapter 6
Mainly my ability to learn, had started to fail. There was not need to have ability. But walking was hard. When I stood, I was pushed through, walking. Like a battle of balance and superstition. Crawling had no sense, being picked up made things silly. When wanting to be here, and not knowing how to get there through crawling, here I was a a chubby fat knight. Father used lemons on my taste buds and cracked when he knew not how I loved them. He had to make work to pay bills and I learned that without a whisper. So we would sh
The story of Zen Zero.
I realized that all good things come to an end. The tears, the affairs, and even the faintest revelation about my relationship to the Emperor of Japan. I’ll need help and... well, the truth can be tolled. It can be that the faintest belief, that we as free people are subject to the king, our God.
A king stands in truth as our kin. The love that has existed for a thousand years, about justice, permanence, and legend are here.
It all started 7 years ago. According to the book of John, the 3rd book. The face of his majesty does have an Imperial Guardian. In any colour, red, black, blue, white, and even green. Each color resembles the color of trust.
I started training in the Emperor's garden at the age of negative 6. Before my mother can conceive her unborn child in a marriage. Like the burning of Shin Cho' Palace.
"Oh, how they forget so quickly, the truth?" says my mother.
They forget so quickly the majesty and power of the Emperor's memory of Mother Japan. In his Majesty's eyes, how many lovers stir the colors of benevolence. Where and when does it exist and stop for us as an American patriot sold to slavery for spy’s. All of his subjects do will and listen to the cry of patience in his family’s quarters.
My father at the time of his marriage did not know the Emperor's name, I had asked my mother in her heart if she knew the king. They are no longer married. They had tried to burn down the Emperor's Palace with a marriage. But I had already existed, in the love of my family at a wedding joining men and women. I remember some singing, all though in my mother’s ears, really bad singing. In her head or mine at the wedding, whichever is greater. Maybe the song was worthless or was the singer already lifting her fingers to strike matches on the bamboo fortress of the young emperor.
They have had many statesmen destroy the dream that Japan has. Through lies, corruption, and *******. Each of the last three I had to conquer to be his Majesty's Justice. I did not earn the right to judge any such subject or people, it was given freely at that time to children. I had learned to love the Emperor, even in my own desire to please him and her.
The lies were towering revelations about the coming of man in God's kingdom, and how the will of imperial veils never existed for the properties of mankind. The corruption was the setting of dowers or dowries for the subject of lost families, in the forbearance of lucher escaped only by the luck of liars. And then the dreams of revelry, owned by the ungodly and chaste men of the burning palace, whether sediscious, or whether the fables absolving time in the palace to a judgment had already met the Emperor.
All of the priests (pre-ests) had to pray; for the remaining time of eternity, for the true judgment of his Majesty's subjects. It was to be taken from the subject of srys to the Emperor's Knight.
To many were lost in the munitions of war. Laws that govern and sanction truths were not available to those of absolute corruption. Stalwarts, stonewallers, and stoners were becoming of the anti-gentry. The laws were never to be discouraged by zeal, or by trial. The laws had to represent the ability of love to change time even if the object of factions destroyed the old way. They had taken the truth to prepare Neoteny for where the first Imperial Guard had placed his head. The first Imperial Guard, that I became before birth had taken his own head with a weapon made by treason.
My mother’s dress was made out of spider silk. A giant spider played Chinese checkers with the Imperial Guard for my head also. Never the less, the palace, this time was not burned. The dress was made out of falling stars and spiders silk. She had found the Emperor's tailor and traded my soul for the wedding. The pictures that were retrieved from the wedding of my mother and father have ruminated in antiquity since the time until by birth my life. The seers and srys wanted my head to take up the Emperor's chalice. His cup, filled with my blood, Simian blood.
I did not want to go through with it, birth and death before becoming subject to royalty. Seeing the world before consummation, as I had was never thought of, it was seen as impossible unless by treason we had chided a woman of royalty.
I have seen the last major asteroid go through our galaxy before it had ever had been a present particle of mutiny. It proved to the child (myself) in gestation, between man woman at the wedding that time will pass just as quickly before my mind’s eye as it had at the day of Pentecost. More than 500 billon people were to be saved by God rather than by a humble dismantling of a defense lawyer.
I had seen how flowers are made by tiny Zen Zero bumble bees going to and leaving from daisies and roses, and orchids. How each seed takes roots and as do the munitions for treason and tears; how each man whom chooses to change their name because of treason begins to understand change when his wife chooses his name. (The reference is to Zero attacks, suicide attacks.) How the time and life and essence of life begins in literacy as a language of love. Every old man on earth can help me write the scripts, but can the country of old men help me change the prophet?
As long as there is war in the palace there will be treason?
The spirit of the samurai was trying the youth in the palace. From the first born male to the last lady in quixic geisha. All uniques were to be placed before the Lord for appointment. Any dreams of or visions of truth were a breach of solemnity lost by the virginity of the family. The parents of each state were subjects to the Emperor's people, and to the chosen for freedom and slavery. How many shining knights were to remain in the Emperor's house? The uniqueness was subject only to the reason of the generation of the age. Not many of my men had anything left after the life of the quill or pen of the Knight Meteyi had begun to take its place with the heads of loyalists. His sword remains in the hand of the Majesty of Japan. No knowledge, no lore, no president, no kin, or liars can stop his reign. As if the last days of our youth were spent dismantling the bombs we had made during the last few battles over crude extravagance. Oil, crops, metals, space, as space became a way to admire men in statehood was the example of treason to the following. Democrats and Republicans began to try as is a trail of laws to and from changes for the people without a loyal subject to observe in service to a Nation. Freed men became a bureau of Federally Bureaucratic Investigative subjections. Whether the phone would sense its use and had no service. Men tried by srys had needed no way to communicate, they were objects, objections, and objective to democracies. Any and all of the western knowledge of good or evil was not earned in monasteries, it was as it were seen in-between a marriage of a man and a woman and the consummation of the first born to be the king in his own mind. Centrally, intelligence and agency became a lost paradox. The palace could be burned through neoteny, the truly lost man or woman had to be part of the worm. The earthworm had to dig up the lost and the prophet from its own humanly death.
Chapter 2
The dress as simple as it was, was taken off and laid in a box for saving. It was to travel through time in the Emperor's Palace to serve has a mold, a pattern for quilting lovers of the family tree through the history of love. After the child was conceived in love, the dress is worn and then placed back into the box for time travel. From a generation of mothers to another generation of lovers. No man was to wear the dress as an idea, thought or wisdom. The reproach, the dress, and the marriage is virtue encoded into a structure of life The wisest man let the Emperor dream life into the belly of prophets through the dress. The smartest scientist understood the impeccable reason of lust and gave all to his bride for the grave that the earthworm had trusted. The publican had the dress made as a dowry to the tribe of Roman man. And the Emperor breathed life into the woman with a few breaths at the wedding. The subjects, the publicans had tried the Emperor for their bride, by making the flowers lean toward their lovers. They had tried to tell the knight of the Emperor's Palace that the sun had also retired due to mutiny in the ranks and castes of statesmen. The son will bend light into the palace of wisdom, and the subjects do grieve the stories from prophets.
At exactly 10:03 central eastern standard time, the states men forgave themselves of suicide and left to burn the palace.
Each dressed as royalists. The burning of Chinju Palace is the last thing I remember before giving up to the sound of a 3 or 4 year old woman singing. The next thing I remember is being dropped on the floor in the delivery room to a rattle and brattle of childish whims. Like, the sound of laughter, but only as a fury of deceit, the singer was hurt when I had asked her to join the wedding ceremony. She excused herself of the ceremony as was or were not subjects to the birth of the kings men in harmony.
She tried, and wanted to steal the dress.
Chapter 3
There was mostly nothing in the womb. Except Dogma. My father, as dogma. He would whisper to her in bed and they would giggle about never understanding anything ever again. I excepted NAME for my name. They didn’t know if a boy or a girl were to be born. I could know the difference at the time of their conversation. I then realized that the 3 years prior to conception were perfect. And I, the Emperor's Knight, was tolled. Tolled the way bells sound and the way people love to hear the news. The way light has no existence in the womb, I was tolled the way Sandalphon treaded upon the tribe of Israel.
Lying was not invented yet, well,... while in the womb, but I had heard some whispers in the darkness. The camera couldn't fit in, I called and tolled the camera from the womb, in between to friends. I called the camera, Dragon. The dragon is the trust moving in-between true and time. The Dragon, Meteyi had told me that we were going to write everything. From the believe that martial arts were stronger than prayer, and to the reason that it was not true. Factually, there was nothing but prayer and no martial artist had a sword bigger than the lie of the Emperor's dragon. The dragon said, to my father,..."The world is to die for, and not enough." The dragon also said to my mother,..."The purpose is in your belly as a rainbow in disgust." He, the dragon almost couldn’t believe that I had mentioned to hymn that there was no way out of this without a dream so relax and let me fit in. The doctor had to have heard of the loyalist dream of a birth right. Basically, I didn’t want him to slap me for the first breath. I hurt bad, like out of a sarcastic Scotlandish parody. Many, many, many, men quit trying to go through the sry after that. My mother creeped up to me after my kin had asked the doctor to pick me up off of the floor. She smiled and handed the birth certificate to the nurse and read my social security number to my father on the phone, he was on duty at the Air Force Base. My ears were still clogged with seminal fluid, but I could feel her dream a name into my soul. She can know the Emperor's knight. After a few moments, my cry as chide by the Emperor, into being a whisper of life. From that moment on in my life, I could not cry ever, as a child cries. Otherwise I could be a whisper.
Chapter 4
Every chance at change that had gotten to us was used by running from the dragon. He liked Batman and hated Robin but new to fathers, knew that hatred kept something’s safe from the palace. The palace could never get filled by whispers. The whispers only object to democracy and help the camera. The daguerreotype was possibly the only thing that couldn’t lie. It was considered lye to gossip worshipers. Gossip may have started the war on bugs. Like bugs in ceaseless noise are prayer or whispers, like gossip. When bugs stop whispering, some seemingly are bad with superstition and others are horrible with bugs.
The next few years, were also perfect. I had no idea who else, I could be. Absolutely perfect, the Emperor subjected us to love. I could **** all day, eat as much as I wanted and was warned when they thought, like a whisper. When it was time to eat, when it was time to bath and when it was time to be quiet and sleep were similar to whispers. Diapers were not invented yet, I had to invent them. My mother used to get sick from the pain of laundry and sleeping with me. When the diapers were *****, she wash them and place them back on my ****. Like a good, palace guardian, I used them up. The new diapers had an air of mutiny to them, the disposable ones. We never kept trash in the house. The signs that we have had a king for dinner were never to be seen, but everyone had the right to change pants.
Many of the ideas in life shared before birth were not existent after birth. It was not until my family had meet the Emperor that... we needed to love God by learning to pray.
Chapter 5
When we met the Emperor, it was easy to say that no whispers were used. Other things were. A memory, not a book was here. There was no time, the palace he made for me was from God and a lot of people wanted in. The Royal subject was the Emperor's first knight, my father's. I had to memorize time, which in turn was not mine. The actual Emperor thought, that I, am a poet of sorts. We spelled the word memory in the sky together without words, whispers, or gossip. The next few years were spent dyeing as tap or a drill bit would being to make a hole for fastening life to the surface of my families. Called a tap and die, the whole of life must be treaded through time without a spry attempt to vacancy. After the Emperor, my mother and father did not know that meeting the pope was bad. The Emperor is good.
Chapter 6
Mainly my ability to learn, had started to fail. There was not need to have ability. But walking was hard. When I stood, I was pushed through, walking. Like a battle of balance and superstition. Crawling had no sense, being picked up made things silly. When wanting to be here, and not knowing how to get there through crawling, here I was a a chubby fat knight. Father used lemons on my taste buds and cracked when he knew not how I loved them. He had to make work to pay bills and I learned that without a whisper. So we would sh
Chapter 8 to follow after inspection.
Tyler King Nov 2016
IV. The Emperor
Tyler King
Nov 2016
The Emperor watches
The Emperor judges with eyes of fire and diamond
The Emperor holds a grudge, hard
The Emperor holds nothing but contempt beneath his armor
The Emperor grasps the ankh in one hand and the globe in the other, signifying total ******* over life and land
The Emperor sits alone atop the mountain, adorned in gold and ram skulls
The Emperor takes no counsel
The Emperor speaks only in mandates
The Emperor doesn't need to be told he is divine he just believes
The Emperor passes the sentence and swings the sword
The Emperor guards the door to Heaven
The Emperor believes Heaven is beneath his boots
The Emperor cannot be bothered to check
The Emperor does not ask he takes
The Emperor cannot imagination rejection
The Emperor would destroy anyone who tried
The Emperor feels fear
The Emperor runs his fingers over the cracks in his throne
The Emperor knows that if they break out from his grip they will show him no mercy
The Emperor does not know if he can be broken but is not willing to risk it
The Emperor comes down harder and harder every time
The Emperor shatters under the weight of his arrogance
The Emperor is dragged through the streets
The Emperor dies knowing humility
The Emperor's armor rusts
The Emperor's throne breaks
The Emperor's sword is buried with him
In an unmarked grave, somewhere at the base of the mountain
The Emperor is forgotten, and the empire breathes easier every day
The Emperor judges with eyes of fire and diamond
The Emperor holds a grudge, hard
The Emperor holds nothing but contempt beneath his armor
The Emperor grasps the ankh in one hand and the globe in the other, signifying total ******* over life and land
The Emperor sits alone atop the mountain, adorned in gold and ram skulls
The Emperor takes no counsel
The Emperor speaks only in mandates
The Emperor doesn't need to be told he is divine he just believes
The Emperor passes the sentence and swings the sword
The Emperor guards the door to Heaven
The Emperor believes Heaven is beneath his boots
The Emperor cannot be bothered to check
The Emperor does not ask he takes
The Emperor cannot imagination rejection
The Emperor would destroy anyone who tried
The Emperor feels fear
The Emperor runs his fingers over the cracks in his throne
The Emperor knows that if they break out from his grip they will show him no mercy
The Emperor does not know if he can be broken but is not willing to risk it
The Emperor comes down harder and harder every time
The Emperor shatters under the weight of his arrogance
The Emperor is dragged through the streets
The Emperor dies knowing humility
The Emperor's armor rusts
The Emperor's throne breaks
The Emperor's sword is buried with him
In an unmarked grave, somewhere at the base of the mountain
The Emperor is forgotten, and the empire breathes easier every day
Nigel Morgan
Jan 2013
Zuo Fen meets Jia Li and her child Hui Ying. The temporary guardian of the palace speaks with the help of one of the pack-horse men who understands something of the dialect this young woman owns. Zuo Fen would rather envelope Jia Li with her eyes than communicate in three-way speech. And so when Jia Li begins haltingly to tell the same tale told to Meng Ning the previous night Zuo Fen halts her translator with a gesture until the story – and this is what it appears to be – is told.
(Here Zuo Fen assumes the persona of Jia Li as part of her rhapsody titled The Sorcerer of Eryi-lou)
Alone in this crumbling palace
I guard my father’s charge,
He has been ill since late Spring
And I have disgraced my family
With a child whose father stayed
but a week trading horses.
Hui Ying was born here
And here we hope to stay.
I have now come to recognize
Many spirits of the past.
Mostly invisible I take them by surprise
In their mortal form; meeting a lady
And her maid on the hall terrace;
Seeing two men bent over
A game of go in a lesser chamber.
Music and the sound of poetry float
Variously through the many rooms.
The aroma of food comes and goes.
The burning of incense is ever present.
For many seasons my village supported
Palace life during the Emperor’s summer visits.
We provisioned and provided animals
For food and transport. Our young men,
Our women too were propositioned
For the more elaborate practices of the court.
Twenty summers long the palace secured for us
a livelihood beyond expectation.
Over time the events of the Emperor’s
Last sojourn in the palace became
For us the stuff of legend, though we do not
Embroider its story and have remained silent
Out of respect for the Emperor’s memory.
We know his son has rarely ventured here.
Let me only tell what has come from
my father’s lips, what he as a young man
Witnessed and through his guardianship
Has protected and honoured. He was chosen
By officials of the Emperor as a trusted servant,
A man who would oversee what had been precious,
What had been valued here, and is still deemed to be.
My father has spoken to me of the disappearance
Of the Emperor’s second wife with the sorcerer Yang Mo,
A disappearance witnessed by the whole company of visitors,
By the Emperor himself, and his son. I am charged to tell
Of this only to those bearing Emperor Wu’s seal. Know I speak
With all truth and honesty in lieu of my father’s presence.
Amongst the many guests honoured by the Emperor
The sorcerer Yang Mo arrived by invitation
To spend part of the third season at Eryi-lou.
Already well-known to the court he had come
At the express wish of second wife Xie Jiu.
It is said that he created many remarkable illusions.
Unusual objects and rare animals were summoned to appear,
Rain fell and winds blew inside the Emperor’s hall,
There were piercings of flesh and limbs seemingly severed.
One morning it is said Yang Mo caused a boat
To appear on the lake, thereby at odds with the legend
That no vessel should ever touch its surface. Forthwith,
The Emperor decreed that such sorcery should
cease. But he was discouraged by second wife Xie Jiu
Who wished to visit the boat and sail on the lake.
Yang Mo offered to escort her across the waters
And led the assembled company to a small beach where
A path of red slate had been laid. This appeared from
within a cave in the hillside. From thence it travelled
to the water’s edge and beyond, under the water
in the direction of the magical boat. Yang Mo is said
to have brought wind and fire and smoke
To play upon the company, finally inviting Xie Jiu to step
On the Red Slate Path and accompany him across the waters.
The couple walked slowly down the path into the lake
Gradually divesting themselves of their garments
As the waters consumed them. Then, before their very eyes
The Emperor’s guests and entourage saw the boat
Enveloped in a pall of smoke and disappear from view.
Yang Mo and Xie Jui were never seen again.
The Emperor was enraged, realizing suddenly
he had been tricked and made to look a cuckold
in front of his own court. In such a remote region
He had the slenderest of means available
to search for the missing couple. He resolved
to leave Eryi-lou immediately. Neither He or
His son nor his court has ever returned.
Allowing Jia Li to tell this tale without interruption had proved a right and wise decision. No sooner had the young woman realized her story had grasped the undivided attention of this celebrated courtesan than her words of description seemed to take on a rough poetry. Zuo Fen felt herself summoning unbidden images of the sorcerer’s illusions, moments of secret and forbidden congress between Yang Mo and Xie Jiu, the appearance of the sailing vessel from the early morning mists, the lovers slowly processing down the Red Slate Path, the disbelief and then fury of the Emperor.
When Jia Li had taken leave to comfort her infant child Zuo Fen called Mei Lim to summon Meng Ning. She was clearly troubled by how her autumn visions from the west had brought her to this place and its unforeseen legacy of magic and deceit. The illusion of the sailing vessel and the walk into the lake on the Red Slate Path, both were elaborate and well-contrived artifices. They required skilled assistants and collaborators and the most careful planning. Sitting in silence opposite one another the courtesan and the chamberlain set their minds to consider the possible and elaborate trickery that might have been brought to bear on the complicit theft of the Emperor’s second wife. It seemed clear that all official record of what had passed had been expunged, and the Emperor had decided to abandon not only his summer sojourn but also his palace - immediately and forever.
Zuo Fen wondered at the fate of the lovers. There could be no future for them within the known territories of the Empire. Their lives would have to begin again far distant. The province of Yunnan perhaps? But she laid that thought aside.
(to be continued)
(Here Zuo Fen assumes the persona of Jia Li as part of her rhapsody titled The Sorcerer of Eryi-lou)
Alone in this crumbling palace
I guard my father’s charge,
He has been ill since late Spring
And I have disgraced my family
With a child whose father stayed
but a week trading horses.
Hui Ying was born here
And here we hope to stay.
I have now come to recognize
Many spirits of the past.
Mostly invisible I take them by surprise
In their mortal form; meeting a lady
And her maid on the hall terrace;
Seeing two men bent over
A game of go in a lesser chamber.
Music and the sound of poetry float
Variously through the many rooms.
The aroma of food comes and goes.
The burning of incense is ever present.
For many seasons my village supported
Palace life during the Emperor’s summer visits.
We provisioned and provided animals
For food and transport. Our young men,
Our women too were propositioned
For the more elaborate practices of the court.
Twenty summers long the palace secured for us
a livelihood beyond expectation.
Over time the events of the Emperor’s
Last sojourn in the palace became
For us the stuff of legend, though we do not
Embroider its story and have remained silent
Out of respect for the Emperor’s memory.
We know his son has rarely ventured here.
Let me only tell what has come from
my father’s lips, what he as a young man
Witnessed and through his guardianship
Has protected and honoured. He was chosen
By officials of the Emperor as a trusted servant,
A man who would oversee what had been precious,
What had been valued here, and is still deemed to be.
My father has spoken to me of the disappearance
Of the Emperor’s second wife with the sorcerer Yang Mo,
A disappearance witnessed by the whole company of visitors,
By the Emperor himself, and his son. I am charged to tell
Of this only to those bearing Emperor Wu’s seal. Know I speak
With all truth and honesty in lieu of my father’s presence.
Amongst the many guests honoured by the Emperor
The sorcerer Yang Mo arrived by invitation
To spend part of the third season at Eryi-lou.
Already well-known to the court he had come
At the express wish of second wife Xie Jiu.
It is said that he created many remarkable illusions.
Unusual objects and rare animals were summoned to appear,
Rain fell and winds blew inside the Emperor’s hall,
There were piercings of flesh and limbs seemingly severed.
One morning it is said Yang Mo caused a boat
To appear on the lake, thereby at odds with the legend
That no vessel should ever touch its surface. Forthwith,
The Emperor decreed that such sorcery should
cease. But he was discouraged by second wife Xie Jiu
Who wished to visit the boat and sail on the lake.
Yang Mo offered to escort her across the waters
And led the assembled company to a small beach where
A path of red slate had been laid. This appeared from
within a cave in the hillside. From thence it travelled
to the water’s edge and beyond, under the water
in the direction of the magical boat. Yang Mo is said
to have brought wind and fire and smoke
To play upon the company, finally inviting Xie Jiu to step
On the Red Slate Path and accompany him across the waters.
The couple walked slowly down the path into the lake
Gradually divesting themselves of their garments
As the waters consumed them. Then, before their very eyes
The Emperor’s guests and entourage saw the boat
Enveloped in a pall of smoke and disappear from view.
Yang Mo and Xie Jui were never seen again.
The Emperor was enraged, realizing suddenly
he had been tricked and made to look a cuckold
in front of his own court. In such a remote region
He had the slenderest of means available
to search for the missing couple. He resolved
to leave Eryi-lou immediately. Neither He or
His son nor his court has ever returned.
Allowing Jia Li to tell this tale without interruption had proved a right and wise decision. No sooner had the young woman realized her story had grasped the undivided attention of this celebrated courtesan than her words of description seemed to take on a rough poetry. Zuo Fen felt herself summoning unbidden images of the sorcerer’s illusions, moments of secret and forbidden congress between Yang Mo and Xie Jiu, the appearance of the sailing vessel from the early morning mists, the lovers slowly processing down the Red Slate Path, the disbelief and then fury of the Emperor.
When Jia Li had taken leave to comfort her infant child Zuo Fen called Mei Lim to summon Meng Ning. She was clearly troubled by how her autumn visions from the west had brought her to this place and its unforeseen legacy of magic and deceit. The illusion of the sailing vessel and the walk into the lake on the Red Slate Path, both were elaborate and well-contrived artifices. They required skilled assistants and collaborators and the most careful planning. Sitting in silence opposite one another the courtesan and the chamberlain set their minds to consider the possible and elaborate trickery that might have been brought to bear on the complicit theft of the Emperor’s second wife. It seemed clear that all official record of what had passed had been expunged, and the Emperor had decided to abandon not only his summer sojourn but also his palace - immediately and forever.
Zuo Fen wondered at the fate of the lovers. There could be no future for them within the known territories of the Empire. Their lives would have to begin again far distant. The province of Yunnan perhaps? But she laid that thought aside.
(to be continued)