The Bell that Rings

Defeat, that swell, is a rainsong
No wonder!
And victory is a storm
Victorious killing: lighting
Hot judgment, scorn:
Scorn then is the thunder come

The threefold jury
One and one one
so too three
Rage and Quiet and Song
Each must hear
This tale of mine
Each, please, I beg:
listen long

Have pity on one
As I
Who has yearned
and has pined
Till blind
And seeing
Have grown blinder still

The clouds inside
You know them, Sirs!
Have grown wild
Rumbled around
And writhed
Till occluding
Even that selfsame sky
Which birthed them
Like so many calloused hands
Gloved by burrs

They too are orphans
These bulbous clouds
They too are drained
From their own fountainhead:
Leaving not a dram

And purple now
Then red
The colors
Inside
My private wilderness
The clouds
Inform my head

Till my head floats among them
and I, my soul floating,
follow in their stead

For feeling through these sights
And spectacles
Accosting me as the King’s
Grand chosen adoptee
I know not truths
And these near past dealings
I’ve dealt not well

No
No
No
Cards
were played

No
No
No
Cards
were dealt

You
You
You
Are suspect

You
You
You
We doubt
Who framed
Ray Lahoon
And set him out
From this tower’s glow
Into the hot green doom:

The woods might be his tomb
And so too may they be
For you

What say you?
You
You
Who framed sad Ray Lahoon
and cost his father his hand’s
right grip and hold

You who were born to a new dead mother
And so grew to take our Tower’s form

In defense, a cadence
A rhythm
And a swell

All is not well
All has not been well

Lo

The escape is all
Like a ringing bell
The hell the hell
It’s a ringing bell

The tower’s tall
And shall not be felled
The wells the wells
Shall be dug, nor neither felled

The Sister calls
And may well be known
She yells and yells
Shall sing on through it all

A sound:
Yeah, yeah, the escape is all
Like a ringing bell

The hell the hell
Crumbles once
A stone
A breathe
And a memory

I once had a brother.
You know that this is so.
The brother was a trickster juggler
And become a sorcerer
And declared a king
T’was no king
But he declared it.
And so became that thing.

I once had a sister.
The sister was right and fair.
And she became a sorcerer.
And she was declared a bride.
T’was no bride.
But was so declared.
And so she became that thing
And breathed that thing like air.

What wonder
And mystery:
To become the thing
That one declares!

Ahh jealousy runs
In the family, mine. And woods
Are all flames for me.
My brother, mad,
Went to seek my sister
Lost. And the lost sister,
Encroached she upon
Some rogue and wild man
Offering no dowry’s righteous cost.

So I the orphan,
Thrust to position
Raged and turned
Accosted I the King
In nights of vision’s burn.
Till I made the burning
A thing more than whim.

And caught
Pay I now for my
Jealous sins.
Pray, mercy:
Kill me
That I might
Anew begin.

Oh pay you shall.
Ho, ring that bell.
It rings!
Lo, here’s the swell.
Look there through that grate beyond
and see you Ray Lahoon.
Cast out now into fear.
Thrust forth now into gloom.

Raised were you
To fear the woods
Before all else
And to crouch inside
The Tower
For safety and for wealth
compiling

Lo, you too see Eyeless Ray Lahoon
Blind, he goes forth

See you now! He is
smiling.

How can that be?

It is because you go with him.
And you will help him see.

But I refuse.

Refusing
Will not undo.
What we intend
to see.

Once, thrice
Reverie.
Light
Cascades
Over ye’.
Latticed, rhythmic
And crashing steeds.
To dust you go,
And crushed you’ll be.
Till diamondine
you become a stone

A diamond
For Ray Lahoon’s brow
Is our punishment
For thee.

Read the Lyric from the Beginning