The King
I am king of the room
My crown is the dust of morning
and the earth is my palace
I am king of the room
The giver of gifts, books cannot compete with me
Upright as a coat stand,
permanent, like damp in the walls
My days are windows
and my chair a crippled horse
*
I am the king of kings!
Nothing except the table
and the notebooks that lie on it
Nothing except fingers slipping into softness
Nothing other than what I own
*
I am a king of doors and wrung-out clothes,
of images flung against walls
A king of words in flight like flies
A king of cold
and wounded loneliness
A king of coughing
and rotting teeth
A king of borrowed time
who sometimes falters
I am a pale king
A small king
A king