The King's Mote Poem by Felix Bongjoh

The king's mote


Give me a moat,
A cave, a castle
And I'll find a boat
To dispel a hustle.

Make me a mote,
I'll stain a tyrant's eye.
Near a hush's bloat,
I'll avoid a mote's dye.

When red the only color
Is the king's stained collar
Mist drifting
Blood dribbling


Past a heart's ghost,
The despot's pie,
Complicity's host
As clean doves die.

Where a storm blows
Towards a mine,
A draggy retreat grows
A sheen meant to pine

When it's time to dine
After a nightmare
Jumps over a clear line,
There lies the snare

In which a strangled people
Trapped at a cliff's edge
Fear no blood will trickle
Off; accept a storm's dirge-rage.

Backward, we slip off a cliff.
Forward, we're caught
In a storm's prang, the thief
We all learn to shyly court

Until our lives are laid out
In a moat, a king's court
Where lingers the only scout
Wet before a rainstorm cries out.