Misba

The Great Convergence

The day isn’t far
When you’ll crave the one—
The art that will steal your dreams.
But it won’t come
Because your world is flipped

The Great Convergence

The day isn’t far
When you’ll crave the one—
The art that will steal your dreams.
But it won’t come
Because your world is flipped
Beneath all grand schemes.
Fake words, fake news, fake booze
Fill your chalice in streams.
The Devil brings nymphs
Who sing lies of trance in hymns.
That day is the end of all days,
Lasting decades.
Though it’s only the Hour in One God’s dreams.

In that Hour, you’ll wish you had a friend
Of real flesh and blood in red enflamed—
Who will mend your heart smoked.
You got lured, dazzled by hell’s hanging fruit,
But when you touched it, inside, it was all grieving soot.
That day isn’t far
When you’ll crave peace and someone with measured brute,
Who would sing it all to the world from the Opener of Truth.
That day isn’t far when you will want her—
The one with a true smile and one matching foot.

When he got up under our bridge,
he lifted hand and head as one
So he wouldn’t need to shout,
and said, ‘Now see what pain is,
you living one, visiting the dead:
see if anything’s worse than this.
And so you can take back my news,
Know that

When he got up under our bridge,
he lifted hand and head as one
So he wouldn’t need to shout,
and said, ‘Now see what pain is,
you living one, visiting the dead:
see if anything’s worse than this.
And so you can take back my news,
Know that I’m Bertran de Born,
Evil counselor to the young king.
I set the father and son at odds:
Achitofel was no worse with David
And Absolon, pricking them on.
Because I sundered those joined,
I carry my brains separately
From their stem in my poor body.
So the counterpass, on show in me.’

I say—‘let’s go alone, unguided,
since you know how; I don’t like this.
If you are as observant as usual
Don’t you see them gnashing teeth,
Looking as if they mean trouble?’
He tells me: ‘Don’t start worrying:
They can gnash just as they want,
They do it at those simmering souls.’
They turned to take the left bank;
But first, each blew a raspberry
At their leader, for a salute,
And he trumpets back with his arse.

I’ve seen troops get under way,
Whether to attack or to parade
Or sometimes to make a retreat;
I’ve seen horsemen on your land,
You Aretines, I’ve seen raiders,
Clashes at tournaments and jousts;
I’ve witnessed clarions and bells,
Drum-rolls, signs from battlements
Or other signals, native or foreign;
But I never heard a bugle like this
Get horses or infantry into action,
Or ships steering by land or stars.
So we depart with the ten devils,
Grisly company!—but then in church
With saints, with scum in the pubs.
My eyes were fixed on the pitch
To study everything in this valley
And the people being stewed here.
Like dolphins arch out their backs
and give a warning to sailors
that they should save their boats,
so occasionally, to ease their pain,
a sinner’s back would curve out
then in again, quick as lightning.
Or like at the edge of a ditch
The frogs poke their noses out,
Keeping the rest of them hidden,
So here the damned, everywhere;
But when Barbariccia approached
They go back under on the boil.
I saw and I still shudder at it—
One stay put, as it can happen
every frog slips away but one;
And Graffiacane, who was nearest,
He hooks him by the tarred hair
And out he comes, like an otter.
I knew the names of the devils,
I’d listened when they were picked,
And when they called each other.
‘O Rubicante, get your claws going,
Shred his skin for him a bit!’
So the others all start shouting.
‘Master,’ I ask, ‘can you find out who he is,
This poor devil here
Who’s plumb in his enemy’s hands?’
So my master went over to him
To ask who he was. He replies:
‘I’m from the kingdom of Navarre.
My mother put me to the service
Of a lord, my dad being a lout
Who ruined himself and his goods.
Then I served good King Thibault:
Here I began my shady dealing
That I sweat to payback now.’