The lady of the lake
Arthur’s Kingship embalmed
in Avalon’s cold storage,
she reclaims her doze,
shivering in the liquid drifts
of time’s nectar capsule,
once more pulsing pendulum
to the fluid mechanisms
of a conjuror’s clepsydra.
The sword lobbed and caught,
its enigma again wombed
in her jealous ownership,
she lies embryo, suspended
within the juice languor of
myth’s amniotic caisson.
Her legend usefulness
now redundant, Merlin broken
and Lancelot shrunk to be
a whore’s puppet, she sways
a bubble nothingness, slung in
the hydraulic hammock
of miasmic currents,
captive to the sorceries
and salts of fabulous tides.
Text © Keith Howden
