Hello Grasshopper,
                  This is an interesting idea. I wonder, though, about some of your phrases - venomed vessel, bored a blowhole to my brain, shatter into shards. It can be highly attractive to combine sounds in this way (Hopkins) but it doesn´t always come off (with bloody blameful blade he bravely...). I have some reservations about the ones you use here. By the way, `shard´ is one of those words that some `experts´ have outlawed. Peter Sansom makes a big thing about shard referring only to a fragment of clay, not to glass. This raises two questions; do we want to outlaw `poetic´ words, if we do, how do we identify which words are `poetic´ and should poets only use words in their `pure´ and original sense? That´s three questions. And should they learn to count before they start to write? That´s ...um..six?



Best wishes,   Mike




--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---


                Roi de Verre

They filled a glass Byzantine cup, blood red
as noble swordsman's shame. My taster tried
the wine. I watched the wholeness of his head
fall back, the gulp, the gasp. I think he died. 
Before I smashed the venomed vessel down,
I saw the gleam of sacred gems, the sly
encircling eyes, glazed light around my crown.
Now all is dark. Both day and night I writhe
through dreams. Astrologers consult their charts.
I feel black fractures branching through the bone
from where they bored a blowhole to my brain.
One day my flesh will shatter into shards
and no one, nothing, will repair my throne. 
A crazed glass holds the fragments of my pain

                                                 grasshopper

[Charles VI of France was also known as Charles the Mad. In his madness, he cut down several of his own men. He sometimes put iron rods in his clothing as he was convinced he was made of glass and could break. A trepanation (operation to bore a hole through the skull) provided only temporary relief.]