[Canvases] - Silver and Gold

1.

There was a boy named Silver
There was a girl named Gold
And they each bore up a quiver
And they each bore up a bow
They went to kill the sacred hart
That they hunted in a dream
But they found first an aged bard
Skipping stones across a Stream
His lute was old and tired
His eyes were clear and bright
His arm was taut and wired
His pebbles sang in flight
They stopped to ask if he would tell
Where they could find their prey
They watched him as his smile fell
And he knelt begging as to pray

2
No, no.
Turn back, brother,
Sister.
There is no quarry for
You here, hunters.
You've not
Heard the song?
I will sing it then
Its text is the last infected
Breaths of an addicted man
Whose lyrics softly
Popped through the spit
He choked on its tune is
His terminal heartbeats echoing like his
Children's feet on stone
Pitter patter, farther, father
He's never coming home
So forget this place, this
Path, your prey
Go home
I will not bury two children more
So listen to these words
Carried on this tune

3 Whoso list to hunt, crack in half thy bow
Wrap careful tight the splinters in their string
And bear them to that arsenal below
Where lies awake entombed a blinded king
Watchman of dead yew strands, charged eons past
To let ne'er one more song these bows to sing
Until some nameless day arrives at last
And nine sunbursts with banners newly borne
Call memory's daughters like lightning cast
From thunderclouds of long forgotten storms
And return the blinded king his lost song
That he may one more before death perform
Oh hungry hunters, leave your bows unstrung
Until the watchman king his song has sung

Four Silver could not help but laugh
While Gold just shook her head
The aged bard was moonstruck daft
To warn the living of the dead
"Is this Thamyris that you mean?"
Said the world weary Gold
"Why fear what has never been
But in bedtime stories told?"
Silver caught his laugh-lost breath
And joined his sister's jeers
"Thamyris as much a tune caressed
As the Nine caught it with their ears!"
Their wit was sweet new splendor
Which clear lit the myth-dark lies
They knew better than their elders
Like every youth,
Every youth,
Every dream that cannot die

FThey ifound vtheir ebodies in the forest
Beneath the branches
Of a white oak tree.
A few miles and Eight deaths away
The Castle like an undying watchman
Stood his post.
And between them was a parchment
And fresh ink
Black as liquid coal
Marking wet riverbeds from their parted lips.
The ink moved languid from their drowning lungs
To slip through their sealed jaws' clench
And dribble out in gasped tremored flows
So as to mark these last five poems on the page.
Tragedy, that the canvas should resist.