Medieval (Me Devil)

by Jake Kilroy
Originally written September 21, 2007.

What shall we call this?

The Pompous Poet Lounges Around Loudly Once Again In The Streets
(Or, "What Graces A Young Women To Dance Sin In The Wake Of A Public Speaker")
(Or, "The Cobblestone Address Of Confidence And Beauty")
(Or, "What Renaissance? I Thought You Were All Here To Love Me")
(Or, "When Careless And Dashing, Always Love Heroically")
(Or, "Speak Before Spoken To And You'll Always Have Women")
(Or, "The Evening Speech Of The Arrogant Writer Near The Lake At Sunset")

Hear ye, kings and mighty swordsmen!
Hear ye, leaders and courageous soldiers!
Hear ye, queens and slender women!
Hear ye, bad saints and good sinners!
Hear me, chumps and chumpettes!

I swallowed fire to impress all of the audience that gathered fair at the renaissance!
We had to dress up kindly and spark with manners,
as we traveled to a where, not a when.
I saw the push of the shove as her tush I came to love,
and I rhymed myself straight into her bed and right out of her heart.
In one holy place and out the other I am.

I've set fire to kingdoms and I've set foot in churches!
But I've never wrestled a beauty such as you.
The beat talker, no street walker, is she (I pray, and I hope, well-wishers),
but us hapless rogues (snarky and sharky), (whimsical and cunning),
(brutal and bare), (shape-shifting and flesh-kissing),
we're still the leading reason they invented handcuffs.
And I've never been a criminal for crime.
But subliminal for time, or rub slims sinful for rhymes.

Well, you ladies with fans and you fans of ladies,
hear me like the cannon that may be my doom!
I'm the smartest court jester that you've ever seen dance a jig,
and I can swindle your clothes, your cards and your coins,
before you even knew you loved me.
Ah, fair games are only in afternoon lounges it seems!

I live over yonder, out where the trees sigh with content,
the youths swim nude and the lake water has no weeds.
Visit me! I have no barren soul (or any real character to speak of, just tongue).
I've been an empty birdcage full of words since I last loved,
and since I last loved, I've evolved,
much like the jackrabbit (fast and sweet, I tell you).
I'll lay you tender and I'll lay you cold.
By the end, I'll leave your eternity old.
You'll have learned from loving I,
and I'll stay with you until your chest is red with warmth.
Battlegrounds? I should say not!
I couldn't hold any weapon greater than a pen!

So ink your skulls! And spill paint onto your lovers!
We dine on the most sinful of feasts tonight,
but only after the dimmest of lamps in the street blow out their candles,
just like you'll be doing in the new waking eve of heavy breathing.
March, young squadrons of bedroom soldiers!
For I have a declaration and I don't want a king here!
Whispers are the only communication us poets have.
They'll kill us otherwise.
But I've always been that other wise.

Charming hearts and loosening bosom tops are charity work in my efforts!
I hereby declare that I'll also be swearing until dawn
that I saw whatever mystical creature you wanted to exist and named it too!
So piss off, young dreamers and schemers and feverish crashes!
I have done all there is to be done in this era, that is this day and this age!
And your loves sin from dusk until dawn,
while I leave these troops of stretching women!
Wives have left their husbands! Queens have deserted their kings!
And I have left my floor before!
But nevermore am I a humble worker in this town, quiet and without muse!
I am as reckless as I am planned, and I'm as glorious as I am damned!
Drinkers are the only sinners that don't make mistakes.

Powerful rogues! This goes on! I continue! And I apologize for it!
But once you have a fair audience, why stop?
Burn your bottoms and cut off your tops!
The only war we have is with ourselves!
How long have you been fighting? Will you go on? Are you done?
Have you felt your last human being who wasn't you?

Shackles! Prisoners of love! Prisoners of war! Nobody is at home near the fire!
The giggling you hear at night is not you! It belongs to your lover.
You've slept right through the excitement while she slept right through me!
Yes, constables and squires, I loved your maidens and they loved me!
I assure you that I loved them better than they could ever hope to sin,
like steam in courtyards.
Beautiful, tender, wild (never mild in my throws),
careless with laugher. Sweet, loud laugher/(explicit).
Look into it while you chase me on the cobblestones!
I'll look to you as I hobble you with words, gentlemen.
Tomorrow evening, I expect us to have drinks!
Because the only thing I'm better at manipulating than your maidens is your language.

The prettiest skies are our faintest light and our darkest hour is upon us!
You see, I wrote this in five minutes and it's best left for the eaters of squalor who holler
for fights at night when they rhyme so right.
But me, I'm making this up as I go!
I saw a girl in cowboy boots and I felt inspired.
You don't know cowgirls, you say?
Well, I couldn't even tell you what this poem was really in regards to anyway.

But I'll continue to stand in the public square,
maybe to refine this one day!
Or night.

For now though, I have a date with Destiny!
And she's alone until he comes home.

I'm off!