Christopher Bernard

King Alfred

Hail –

“Sir Lawrence Madbottom,” o “Sergeant
    Archangelosi,”
Alfred “Lord” Robinson,
	but best of all: “King Alfred” –
                                                                                       
Grand Inquisitor of poets, emperor of Id, o royal
    fool,

master of the word-flight, the fantasy phone-
    message,
the chopped-liver rejoinder, the shattering 
    putdown,
venereal fly Trappist, bellowing Carthusian, libertine  
    Benedict,
changing religions like lovers and underwear –
a bhutto-dancing Catholic Buddhist Shintoist 
    Jungian Zen Torquemada liberally
denouncing whatever (and anything easily) maddened 
    you,
glorifying magnanimously
whatever, for the moment, you adored –

o man of angry love –

enragé on a dime,
fleck-mouthed, shaking with contempt
and purpling the air with Saxon
for a slight none saw but you,
inflating, in an instant, to a wrathful balloon
or praising to the embarrassed skies
some modest, unassuming beauty
floating above the moon,
coy, a boa flickering above your leather –

loyalist-enemy, criticaster, stone-thrower –

o motley-ermined imperial Imp of the Perverse,

man-lover, self-loather,

grand actor and actor-out,
mystic, martyr
to your own ravaged ego,

crazy windshield of town clerk of Woodstock (and
    not only!) pisser-on-er,

truth-teller, according to your darknesses,
with bell-toned tongue,
mad head, exploding mouth, and searing heart –

until, at the end,
lung-blasted, but still smoking,

would-be saint and sinner, 

you settled, at last, into a spectral

silence, uneasily grinning,

hardly breathing for years now,
wheezing king on a mobile throne
at last – jester:
		hail!

Stung, now, o king, to high heaven and your own
    most cock-eyed eloquence,
demented, majestic, drop-dead devastating,
at the end of your voice – breathtaking –
you have found your God at last, and He
is now at your mercy.

			Hail! and farewell.

		     In memoriam Alfred Robinson

Christopher Bernard is co-editor and founder of Caveat Lector. 

IN MEMORY OF 
ALFRED ROBINSON
(1942 – 2005)

ACTOR, JESTER, GENIUS, FOOL
HOLY MADMAN
POET

(THERE IS A STRICTLY PROPORTIONAL 
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HOW CRAZY 
YOU DROVE YOUR FRIENDS

AND THE INTENSITY 
WITH WHICH THEY MISS YOU.)