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