The Song of the Borderguard
by Robert Duncan
The man with his lion under the shed of wars
sheds his belief as if he shed tears.
The sound of words waits –
a barbarian host at the borderline of sense.
The enamord guards desert their posts
harkening to the lion-smell of a poem
that rings in their ears.
-Dreams, a certain guard said
were never designd so
to re-arrange an empire.
Along about six o’clock I take out my guitar
and sing to a lion
who sleeps like a line of poetry
in the shed of wars.
The man shedding his belief
knows that the lion is not asleep,
does not dream, is never asleep,
is a wide-awake poem
waiting like a lover for the disrobing of the guard;
the beautil boundaries of the empire
naked, rapt round in the smell of a lion.
(The barbarians have passt over the significant phrase)
-When I was asleep,
a certain guard says,
a man shed his clothes as if he shed tears
and appeard as a lonely lion
waiting for a song under the shed-roof of wars.
I sang the song that he waited to hear,
I, the Prize-Winner, the Poet Acclaimd.
Dear, Dear, Dear, Dear, I sang,
believe, believe, believe, believe.
The shed of wars is splendid as the sky,
houses our waiting like a pure song
housing in its words the lion-smell
of the beloved disrobed.
I sang: believe, believe, believe.
I the guard because of my guitar
belive. I am the certain guard,
certain of the Beloved, certain of the lion,
certain of the Empire. I with my guitar.
Dear, Dear, Dear, Dear, I sing.
I, the Prize-Winner, the Poet on Guard.
The borderlines of sense in the morning light
are naked as a line of poetry in a war.
—————
The End
And that’s the End of the Poem
© Poetry Monster, 2021.
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