The New Minstrel

Eugene Hammond's Ramshackle Black Packard

Extravagant and clean and practised, oh, so very well,
they pose and fall and knead and climb, unclothed yet practical.
The ceiling sets the scene and I am reminded not to go.
I’m at the mercy of this posthumous woe.
Never seen again.

Still reticent though yearning, they’ve decided not to go.
Touched upon, within and without; betwixt the very air and soil.
The pouring out of need, as though these swollen stones could flow.
Friends and fiends, like swine, were bought and sold.
Never seen again, the handsome mass of hosts has done away with me.

Buying empathy for the promised lot; a flaccid apathy tied in rotted knots.
Obliging agony is so often not what it was meant to be; is so often wrought…

Never seen again, this handsome mass of hosts does pleasure me.
The new minstrel plays as both of them take leave
across an empire, mapped out in Plasticine.
Never seen again. Never seen again. Never seen again.