pith…

.

the road to knowledge is arduous indeed

Frastus has been a man
and a woman.

The latter he tried once,
thinking it would help him
attain the wisdom of the ages
and a few good times.
So he blackmailed a god
into granting his wish:
what he got was
a case of the Curse
and a lewd proposition
from a dwarf wino
named Freddie.

.

Frathtuth thayth the thooth

Frastus is a voice
crying out in the wilderness,
in the city, in the suburbs,
“Make way for one
who comes after,”
and preparing that way,
setting the bear traps,
the punji sticks,
spreading the poisonous
nuts and berries.

“Make ready, make ready
for one who come after.
He will judge you.”

The bandits leave him alone -
he is poor, and speaks to the moon -
and travelers avoid him.
Nobody listens
and yet he goes on
and on
and

.

Frastus gets around

Frastus has robbed
the pyramids of Egypt,
made love in the Hanging Gardens
of Babylon,
scrawled lewd limericks
on the Great Wall of China,
traveled with Marco Polo,
stripped the clothes from the dead
at Waterloo an Dien Bien Phu,
at Jerusalem and Dunkirk,
without ever leaving
Dannun Dwann.

Thermopolae,
where he stood beside Leonidas
(and crept away
the night before the battle,
ran away to live
and fail to fight another day)
is in Founder’s Park
near the carousel.

.

Frastus finds his niche

Frastus worked at many trades
and avoided work at more.
He was a sailor, a blacksmith
a blackmailer, a thief,
a tinker, a tailor,
an indian chief.
He was a pimp, a priest,
a politician.
He wore so many different hats
he started going bald
in a ring,
like the absence of a halo.

He was rich, he was poor,
he was unsatisfied -
until his Uncle Theo died,
choked on an iguanadon bone,
and left him the pet shop
and he found that he liked it,
and was almost not bad at it.
Later he opened
a place upstairs,
some tables and chairs,
some beds,
some paintings
that nobody looked at.

Now, when the taxman comes,
Frastus sends him
up to the girls
and gives him a pup
to take home to his kids -
and everything’s fine.

He gives his mistresses
silver canaries
that always die
without ever singing a note.

.

Frastus the lover

Frastus gets around.
He comes and goes
unnoticed.
Even his wives don’t recognize him,
though they love him dearly.
His mistresses, however,
know even the sound
of his foot on the stairs,
and make sure the door
is locked and bolted.

His many bastard children
will not acknowledge him
as father,

which saddens him
’til he looks at them.

© John B. Mulligan, 2000. Used by permission of the author.