The Grave Gambol
(Dead Bones Dance)

The annum’s fruit
a black bell
tolls a thick
magnetic
hum… the drone
of a gristle-reeded horn
dragged through clay.

This
is the season
the soil
forgets its name,
and remembers only
its gravity.

And the gambol.
A convocation
of the un-kept.
The beautiful ruined architecture
rising
from its blueprints of rot.

Hip-sockets,
ball-bearings ground to chalk,
grind out
a slow wailing dust.

The shriek of the signal
a barbed-wire static broadcast
from the wailing horn

The frequency of the grave
finds the root
in the fallen ruins
the blueprint’s white ash

Summon the twitch
the resurrection
of the joint

The sour vinegar
of the un-kept
rising like a bad doll
stiff from the black box

The horn-blower stands on the barrow-mound

His cheeks
two hollows of grey parchment
sucked against the jaw
breathing the drone
the magnetic flat-line
hum
that says assemble
that says perform
perform

And the line forms
the ancient joke
the memento
in stark black and white

Here is the Pope
His jeweled glove
rotted to a spider’s web of thread
bare hook of bone links
what soul remains

Here comes
the grinning plough-girl
her teeth a row
of broken corn

Here rises the King
a crown of rust
slipped sideways
on the hard bare dome

The knight rides in
his armor a hollow
clattering tin can
dragging the landlord
whose purse
spills only wet clods of clay

The virgin is revealed
her veil a sheet of mildew
spun by a gaunt courtesan
together their hollow-sockets
lock in the same empty stare

This is the gambol
the stiff angular delight
of the done
the anti-dance
the dance of all dances
the grandest ball most dread

No blood
just cold mechanics
clockwork of the grave

No grace
just the grate of the chalk
the dry swing of remembered joy

It is the dance of the great
of the small and forgotten
of the corrupted and wicked
of the saintly and pure
all are invited to the midnight hall

The rigid frantic shudder
soon the hook pulls
and the curtain falls

The beautiful ruined architecture
convulsing to the beat
of thrumming
on a forgotten titan’s bone
a rhythm of pure subtraction

They spin
a blur of pale sticks
and sour rags
frantic
hollow
circling until the horn’s drone chokes

The black bell’s screech
cuts the lights
dimness returns
silence falls
the frequency dies in a hiss of clay

The strings snapped
the line collapses
tangle of junk-shop mannequins
the joke is over

The architecture fails
gravity claims
its pale scattered alphabet
the beautiful ruined heap
sleeping to rise again.