.
In a costume of conflicting emotion,
of crossing diamondic colour,
with regal posture in grief,
the Harlequin and the King,
a display of opposites
creating a composite being,
that eases her body
gently into the waiting water,
to float away serene,
on her journey to the nether.

Midnight blue and emerald green,
the regalia of ermine,
both ostentatious and humble,
robeing the aspects,
understated in crowning splendour,
the gentleman King bows,
and the Harlequin laughs,
the bi-polar reaction
to the tragedy of misfortune,
with a sting in the myth-tale.

With the dark hues of mourning,
a legend passes on her way,
across the streams of time,
on a voyage to discover herself,
carrying her Harlequin in a purse,
holding her King to her breast,
owning them both in her heart,
the medicine wheel spins,
knowing the grapes of wrath
yield the wine of spite.

The motley speckles of attire,
a starry parody of night skies,
lighting the decorated funeral barge,
gliding along the rivers of space,
worn with the mantle of sorrow,
and it sails into the sunset,
as the Harlequin and King observe,
the mandala turns,
the bier of the Queen departing,
bears their sadness forth.

The Harlequin laughs and laughs 'til he cries,
his heart grows cold, then withers and dies,
whilst the King, statuesque, memoirs his life,
lamenting the legend of a Queen, his wife.



© Pagan Paul (24/07/18)

I worshiped her as much as ideas and dreams were worshiped. Only sometimes when I met her at the passion podium wearing my true self, Harlequin with a thousand names, a shadow of my lip is lowered down her pearly neck. She sighed passionately watching my coal eyes as my breath of fresh forest moss and violets stroked her. My ideal desires turned into worship of the forest elves towards slender birch trunks. As easterly wind with words I bent the branches of her smile, touched her imagination with pictures of needs and trembled the leaves of her youth with seductive rumble. She had no chance. I chose her as a single flower, she was not mine and therefore was nobody's. Hypnotized by my silence she awaited for black hole of fate to drew her in and convert her into the shining star of my worship. She will become mine even if I kidnapped her and imprisoned as my Harem slave, I promised myself the first time her shadow fell on my path. At that point she was wolf's hunger at the buffet, she was rainstorm in the desert summer, electronic sight for the blind. She was a mountain of Christmas gifts packaged in a slight *** appeal. I thought it will last forever, that love, and hanging her picture among the portraits of forgotten lovers I watched her as last after many. With remote thought I left a little room on the magnificent wall of romantic freedom knowing that Harlequin's love is fleeting as smile on his face, transient as grimace on his mask and changeable as a form of drawn tears. Love of Harlequin is fantasy fiction story in which one woman does not stay for long.

He has the heart of a tattered harlequin
Patched and re-patched with rags of broken times that were once good.
The cloth of its chambers is worn and threadbare
Held by the shreds of borrowed nights and comical stolen mornings.

He has the heart of a battered harlequin
And regret has turned his blood to the colour of rust
Unanswered questions congeal and clog his pulse
When he is lonely and aching, time - not isolation- is his worst enemy

He has the heart of a knackered harlequin
Kept moist by whiskey and gin, and uppers and downers that he pops like candy
He has a patchwork sack of a heart
It can never be filled and often feels empty.

Harlequin queen
she looks like a dream
if you count nightmares
as pleasant things

She comes around at midnight
because that's where she reigns
she's got memories in her pockets
from picking all the brains

She'll eat your beating heart
with a pulsing cherry on top
and when she's finished with the rest of you
she'll smack her crimson lips with a pop

come to stand center stage
white garish paint on thin hand
thin black mask for a face
he stands in the fading light
dusty serene silences surround him
with deep words paused on his wooden lips
speak now oh devilish masked man in this passion play
speak to the fathers plots and treason's
folly is his candy
trickster lover saint

fathers and other clowns
pour over the construction blueprints of
better living through chemicals
while the girl in the passion play sneaks out the window
to find her song in the silence of pantomime
find her pretty face masked in feathers
so lovely she awaits her lover beneath painted moon

harlequin and the servant slap with a stick comedy
and silently chased by the policeman
run amok on the worlds stage
come children of all ages see the show
silly and sad
fun and adventure
as harlequin and his lover
regale you with the tale
tricking father and the clown to sad defeats
harlequin, harlequin where for art thou harlequin
here you fool slapping the cow on the moon with my stylish stick
folly is his candy
trickster lover saint

I sink, my feet slowly becoming part of the earth softened under the heat of my body and a shy sun rolling evenly on horizon. Lazy sun slowly extends his arms stiff from winter reluctance and expanding them into a hug. I see green meadows, still poor with colors, pale spring messengers and Harlequin's face in the glass reflection. Eyes full of ice slowly melting, just as piles of snow hidden in the spring  shadows. I sink deeper into the trap of needs. My hands have become bare spring branches and wait for your smile to bloom touches. Delicate greenish flowers and young leaves will slowly wake up your eyes from the winter gloom, gentle kisses will tickle your throat and nostrils. My hands are empowered, illusive fingers gliding over your breast. I feel the beauty of the Snowdrop and already lured with memories of Violets. You open slowly like a red Tulip. Tulips are too simple for you. I see beauty of Cyclamen bathed in dew of hidden alley and I think only of sweet kisses you give. As I dive in you the Earth is not just a lump of mud in the universe and the water  is not just a matter which makes it blue. While tears running down your cheeks you say they have decided themselves to come and not knowing why. Then, I stand little before you. The boy filled with dreams. Then I stand bigger than the Earth before you as you are more than water.

Wobbly legs carry me down the sidewalk, slowly treading, with trembling steps over confessioning stones polished with tears and pitted with sour smiles. Icy wind breath wanders tricky streets and breaks on my face painted with mask of unreality. Feelings fade into the background under persistent personalities, crisp white lines merged into reflective rock, polished reflection rejects smile tyrants. Gossamer web of lies covering the gloomy square and bystanders carried by industrial superstition. Shadows of electronic slaves are trailing down realistic borders of suspicious subconscious, their plastic smiles touching me. Pouring out of houses covered with leather useless wallets and paved with extinct bills. In the middle of the square of lost stands the well of career guidance. The reflection of toxic siliconised water  deceptively shows false images of an imaginary future. If I were harlequin I'd remove this mask of nightmares, step through the ****** eyelids curtain and walk on the blinding stage illuminated by the light of reality, but I am Harlequin, my mask is permanent.

Come fellows,
come friends,
to the circus of gnossienes,
where strikes of midnight signal our rebirth,
and from the womb of a pen,
we are ****** upon the parchment that sustains our selves,
as our hair sheds in tufts,
and our teeth dull,
we harlequin worms,
who suffer in smiles,
through geographical refuse.

We harlequin worms,
can love only ants,
who only bite and sting,
which we feel to our cores,
as we watch for the giants,
whom we are convinced,
will crush us on sight.

We harlequin worms,
essential but weak,
embarrassments to our forefathers,
refuters of shovel hypothesis,
wit is best to ignore our five hearts,
before we think ourselves human.

Harlequin worms,
proletariat of the earth,
lords of the soil, listeners of Satie,
Slaves to the insignificance of our own progress.
We shall go without want,
we will smile for thee,
the flies whom pay us no mind.