you,
gentle beast
touching my skin like King Midas

me,
excavating your iced eyes and
devouring them raw with tenderness
and overindulgence

A foolish people
Has forgotten my ways
They have chosen politics and kissing the Pope's ring
They have cast liberty to the wind
They are not worthy of it.

Pellinore’s Fancy
by Michael R. Burch

King Pellinore was famous for hunting the Questing Beast, a rather odd, fantastical creature. Does its name suggest that the beast was dreamed up, or invented for the purpose of questing after it? Perhaps Pellinore simply didn’t want to stay home and needed a good (if farfetched) excuse to furnish his wife . . .

What do you do when your wife is a nag
and has sworn you to hunt neither fish, fowl, nor stag?
When the land is at peace, but at home you have none,
Is that, perchance, when ... the Questing Beasts run?

Keywords/Tags: King Pellinore, questing beast, hunt, Arthurian, legend, myth, wife, nag

When love grows cold, we buy and sell
For we rather ******* than despair
—the fighting spirit empowering the Beast—
But love waits, in pain, crying silently unseen
No exchange without the mark of the Beast
Driving to desperation and worship
Those who live by their wits and arms
COVID19 will expose who these are

There is a storm,
A grey beast.
I should hide, but I must protect this.
There is a storm,
A grey beast.
Protect this little creature.
In the corners, hiding eyes watch me,
He who should hide, but I must protect this.
Those hiding eyes,veer away.
Those hiding eyes, with snicker and sneer.
Those hiding eyes, with empathy and fear.
Become the storm,
This grey beast.

There is a difference
between the normalcy of a love caught up in flames
and a love that sets your heart ablaze

I was third degree before I realized this mess
I was unrecognizable -
tender burn victim
silver melted into my chest

There is a difference between being held
and being haunted
running to your lover
and only being called on when you’re wanted

I was worn down to the bone
my ankles broken and bent
before I learned to stop showing
how little to him I meant

There is a difference
between adoration
and  clearing his name  with fearful vindication

I was blind for most of my days
running with the blindfold
pulled securely over my face

There is a difference between accepting love
and loving the acceptance you get

I was dwindling down to my foundation
all the things he never meant

There is a difference between healing
and bandaging the wounds
There is a difference between how he loved me
and how perfectly you do.

And the biting turned to bleeding
the fist bumps into beatings
I am awake in my nightmare at 2.am.

Beast in the bed
back of the head
take from me while I’m asleep
use my body
piece of meat
Waking
Walking back to that bad dream
of all that time I spent sleeping with the beast.