The Judgment of Ray Lahoon

You never know what it means to stare
Into the eyes of a forsaken man
Until you first do
And there
Find you: you are there
And you shall this so find
If you will
And if you dare

It’s true that you shall
If you look long
If you look
With a lover’s care:
dying is a poem

The angels there
With demon stares
And teeth
Their teeth
Are millionaires

And afterwards
What then is there?

The difference lies!
Between a man
and a pair of eyes
a pair of hands

Say I
Who can kill
A King
Say I
Who can do
Most anything

Whimsical – my fancy is
To send this man away
And ask him to seek
Our enemy
And so there
Start a newborn fray

A mob needs blood to live
Needs bleeding fire to burn a path
For names are a stony thing, obscure:
A mob with a path
Is war!

This is a story I create
For reasons all my own
And the mob might swirl
And swim and writhe
The mob shall not abate
Till none of them stand aright
And all of them
Go home
Their hearts washed clean
With hate

And not once
A thought of mind
And never once
A pause, refined

The Mob
Is the King-Killer’s friend
And the Mob-Man
Is the King-Killer’s right-hand

Nameless
He floats and swings

Fearless
He dies
To live again
And lives
To kill the King

He eats pearls
And borrows sins
For nothing is his own
Because he is
No thing

This now
Is a tale of the exile of Ray Lahoon
Which too is the tale of my ripe ascent!
Of he who drank of the serpent fount
and dribbled none but blithe thoughts
from his bright rose mouth

Ahoo, ahoo, ahoo
The wolf is at the door
And you, and you, and you
You’ll fall upon the floor
Blameless
You shall be blamed
And boneless
Go up in flames

Witness there now
Outside of me, the New First I am
Seest thou: the cogs that turn?
my machinations, my
cragged cut weavings?
my turning hours, still toothed?
my contemplations come real, forsooth!
from the drunk hoard of a dead king’s bone
goes an exile from our aged halls
and a mission to protect our home

The hands that once birthed
Now encase, sting, and squirm
A thousand shrouded identities
A thousand more homeless hearts
Held firm by digits’ lives
Never mind the eyes!
Never mind the eyes!
Leave them for the Judge
The blood! Take
And cup it
There
First a drip
Then a flood

To the Judge, yea’
Let’s hurry to the Judge!

They are swirls
They are sighs
They are mothers
They are fires
They are ergot dreams
And sufferings
And cries

A fingerprint so blinds:
One eye
Three eyes
Two eyes
Three
One eye
Two eyes
Three!

Ray
Is known
He cannot tell a lie

But the mob
Cares not
Look now, see he does not die!

With rigid force and scuffling descent
The mob projects into our cellars here
Wherein the Judge doth dwell
And pays no rent
With wisdom, his face
a round pink tear
slow spent

In candlelight rules he
No books surround him, no
His eyes were once out torn
He reads not, and so he knows

The shadows flick and blow
As the candles darkly glow
A courthouse and a jail
- our cellar, and our stove

Look here,
shouts Mob Man
Look here, ‘tis Ray Lahoon
He who failed the King
He who dared to shoot the moon
And of the King’s wise water
To drink
Can you imagine?
What did he think?

‘Tis Ray Lahoon whose blood must be
The price of our hearts’ new miseries
‘Tis Ray Lahoon whose eyes see not
A rot upon him, ay’, a rotten
Rotty rot

Hold, you! Shoutest I
Hold, you, and prepare the Judge’s way
You there, relax there
And Lahoon,
Get on your ruddy knees
and stay

Prepare yourselves for our Judge
Shall speak
Prepare yourselves
To obey

He our Judge pulls himself
From a stony shelf
Well appointed
With pressed iron cloth
And a tie of pitch black wealth
His left eye a gash and wound
His right a selfsame tomb
And above
A blinking slit of white
An eye there
Where no eye should alight

What it sees
Know not I

He walks, a jiggling under his fetal jaw
Till he stands before Ray Lahoon
And the Mob-Man
For once
is dumbed to awe

And I speak,
For I am
The leader of this Mob
And the Tower’s
Favorite son
and Law

Hail, Judge
‘Tis I the King’s best man
You know me, for I have dined
With you
Twice, twice more
And again

We have spoken thrice more and again
Of the need for order
And the beauty
In discipline

Remember?
You had the chicken
still dressed up with its claws.

Ahh yes, the chicken.
I remember. Soaked
in white white sauce.

Hail, Sir
I hear our King is dead.

Tis’ so, Judge
He’ll never breathe again

This saddens me.
And this here,
is this the faulty man?

Sweet Judge, wise Judge, this is why
We’ve brought him here,
And prostrated him at your feet
In hopes you might resolve that same question
And in so complete
This, our intention:
That he might be exiled
For him we ask no detention
He must needs leave our tower
For he has drunk
Of the King’s own wise water
And he is to blame
for the King’s long fall
Detained here
He would be killed

We would kill him
One and all
Shouts Mob Man, out of turn
But then Mob Man
Never waits
nor never learns

I see that it is so,
Says the Judge, right slow
And you, Lahoon, what sayest you now
In your defense
You’ve killed our King
Does the guilt not gnaw at your
Broad, pale chest?

Sir, yes, Sir, says Lahoon,
I am nothing without my guilt.
But Sir, my guilt
Is in my lack of work.
Blame me not
For my thirst.

The Judge squints first,
his eye a wink and burst.
Then wide, he smiles:

But Lahoon! Your guilt
Is your thirst.
And your lack of work too
Lead you to that well.
And your drinking
Is what we first must curse.

I have heard too t’was not you
Who dropped the rope. Too
Has it been said
That the rope was frayed.

Perhaps that rope was cut.
But these things matter not
To those heads out there and up.
They want your blood,
And therein a semblance of
The safety the King for them
Had got. You are one of them.
Or you were. You must see
that to die
you ought.

No, Lahoon says. I see that not.
For the drink
From the King’s well
splayed my mind. You must
needs know and see. Imagine
the lust of downward turning
after images, and fantasies,
and the bodies of lovely girls
twisted forth into a crystal
and stone and a pillowsoft
groaning. Right here upon my brow.
And even now
I see straight through.
This
world can be a hell.
Too
See I
This world can heal.
This world can be made well.

Liar!
I too have drunk
From the well.
And I see not those things.
You lie.
And lie.
And well.

Hush, says the Judge. Hush you
You King’s friend. You too
Were denied the well. But the King
We know, granted you pardon.

Allow me now to Judge.

Lahoon, Ray,
Your crime is complex at best.
Your thirst led to failure.
Your failure was to thirst.
This man, the King’s best first,
wants from you a thing.
You I banish now.
You who killed the King.

Ray Lahoon
Take you your mission from this one
The King’s favored
And upon completion
You might return.
You might again belong.

But no, hold
I am not done.
The punishment
For the drink
Is this:

Thine eyes.

One first.
Then the second one.

So must it be!
See my will is done!

And who shall make the cuts?

Why, you Sir.
You who want so much.

So must it be!
See my will is done!

And how will he then see withal?
To complete what I’ll ask of him?
In exile the woods are long
And sightless, he will surely fall

Ray Lahoon has Eyes that See
As I with mine own eye
Ray Lahoon, you must believe,
Shall see
Without his eyes

Rebel Bone, the enemy,
He will seek

Your Trickster Brother
Too he will seek

And be you not meek, Lahoon!
Be you neither shy nor weak!
For failure hunts you down
And the Bright Water
wears also a
darkly frown

So must it be!
See my will is done!

Read the Lyric from the Beginning