Original Poetry Fan Fiction ❯ Dux(leader) ❯ Chapter 1

By: John Day Davis
Page 1 DUX(Leader) 5 Feb 1967
Or Catalyst in the Wind by John F. Day Davis


I. The Coming of the Voice
In the pale morning of words
When thoughts have died
And the tinkling sound remains
To jingle in the babble of man:

When the late lips flutter together
And the stale lips open and close
And the words lag and lay silent for the wait
A sound comes walking!

In the summer of man
A Voice comes walking
In the rich word song
That kills the false murmurings
And mellows the summer to wine.

In the wine of words
Come creation by man
As his spirit brings both love and dreams
And sometimes even peace!

II. The Coming of the Lie

The lie has come and
Torn the summer of man
And spilled the wine and
Dried the land
Down in the summer, down in the mouth!

In the early mouth is the thing taught
Precluding the dawn for the slow and the many
In the early mouth is the lie come
That burns the days
And dries the summer of man.

The earth waits close to the summer
For the parching to turn and the moisture to come;
Her masses sit for the thing to come
Staring with dull orbs into the night
That stretches not to the dawn.






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Now here comes the daughter of Cadmus.
She was Semele and was beloved by Zeus!
Her gift to Zeus was Dionysus.

Dionysus planted the vine.
His gifts were healing for the body
And a merriness that rested the mind.
He gave the dithyramb for music
And verse for the birth of drama.

But Dionysus scorned his enemies
And he led an army
Of Selini, satyrs, and maidens.
Each carried a wand
Crowned with ivy or phallic cone.
They marched from Egypt
To India and the Ganges.

And then came worship.
For in worship came the lie.
The shrill mountain nights
With the chants and dance
Led to a legend of hollow earthly wine.

And Dionysus faded to Bacchus,
The Bacchus of Michelangelo-
A leering drunken god
Without healing or merit
Worshiped for fertility and chaos!
And thus came worship
And in worship came the lie!








Page 3 III. A Voice Comes walking
In the early morn are the pale words
Is the thing taught, is the lie sown
In the early mouth is its all come,

Is else come, is beauty come
To mellow the day and soften the lie1

And walking in beauty is the Dux come-
Less charming than beauty but walking in beauty
In the beat of words!

The Dux comes walking
And stumbles in the leaves of man
In the green shoots, and the gay piles
And the pasted heaps.

Down in the summer in the heat of man
The mouth beats
And the words splash against the Wind
Like kites that form the roof of man.

And the earth waits close to the summer
For the parch to turn and the moisture to come;
Soulless, her masses sit and wait for the words
To lead them to the Wind-
For their spirit is the whir of the Wind
Or the back of its howl.

The Dux comes walking
And waits with the earth
And the leaves of the earth for the Wind-
For the grotesqueness, the quaintness,
The awkwardness, and the glory
Of its soft purr and full howl.

Past the faction of sages
And the forum of fond wishes
That end in “marble and stone”,
The mouth beats
When the Dux returns the wisdom
He draws from the Wind.

In alter egos and alter Voices
The Dux turns the leaves to the Wind,
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And chants his enigma of chance and choices
His soliloquy of qualm and wisdom

As a voice comes walking:

IV. On the nature of man

Vox Dux The earth sits in still waiting
Breathless and parched for the gust
That steals
The drop from the brow,
And the rivulet from the navel.

Vox One It waits for the caressing stroke
That dries the nipple
And splays through the robe
To nibble the loins.

Vox Two It waits for the wind that tears
At the sun
With bolts that unwind and spill in rain
When the sky groans with kegs of wine
That rumble and burst in juice;

Vox One It waits for the wind
That jerks at the rump of the sky
And ties the clouds to the rocks,
While the grass combs
The long belly of the Wind
And strings it along the ground.












Page 5

Vox Dux The earth waits
Frowning and parched with wrinkles,
And crusted smiles and then
Comes the Wind!
The torn Wind
Hot from the womb of earth ,
Spitting cold sand
In desert night-
Burning long windows
In the high storm and
Splaying broad winnows in the
Leaves of man.

I fondle the Wind but it
Slithers at the fold
Of the finger
And slaps at the nail-
And the going is a coming
That braces the palm and
Raps at the wrist.

Vox One Today the Wind eats at the leaves,
Blows, flicks, taps at the leaves
A scattering of people
With patterns strangely missing.

Vox Two Red blows the dawn
Until the clouds scurring above us
Are a strange dawning for the
Embers of the dusk.

Vox Dux The people cry for peace
And in the pale teeth of the war
Is the cry lost-
For the sound coming is a
Thin song of peace and the
Dove is silent.

Vox One In the clamor for peace and the
Vox Two rustle of the hawks.

Vox Dux The people wound me
When they jag the crater of clouds and
Barb the wounded sky with
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Bombed praise and words divided
For their thunder is turned to stabs

Vox One Or silence.
Vox Dux If the silence is for me
It hold its peace
Vox Two Or runs from the polls!

Vox One Silence is summer and hard words
The rot-dry parched and bare;
Silence is also rain
That turns the dry to wine words
For rain that paints the sky
Will gather the sun.

Vox Dux Bring me the torn sun
And swaddle the wand-land
With the thyrsus rays of suntearings.
Chant me a broad land
And I will know it,
And I will know the broad love
Tho love be changing-
Tho found love be fond or fallow,
Tho the heart love less than it feels.
Chant me a chuckle
And I will stay in the broad hum
Of the windy land
And fondle every particle
Tho the still blades stir swiftly
And the nettles sit prettily
On their green and waving stalks.

Vox One If you taste the taunt
And bear the ribbing,
Then good go with you
Vox Two And better!

Vox Dux Awkwardness walks in taunt and tatter
And I smile to see the form
And stroll beyond
In the click and beat of the forest.



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Vox Dux I walk in the yellow beat of the thicket
In the chiseled darting forms;
The blur of rapping wings,
The cut of splinted red shadows
From limp pinioned vine
To needle fans
That gouge the play of the Wind
In the mosaic back of the forest
Where the green shoulders shrug
And droop to purple feet!
I walk afield in lonely quiet,
And more in the soul
I stop
Than wait in the road.

Vox One The road is long
With leaf tatters and torn kites
Vox Two and longer with root bound
Pasted leaves.

Vox Dux Easy to walk is the chosen
For choice is sweeter than
Rustling blades in
Rim walled mountains where
Rain is rare and
Days have the long breath of the Wind.

Vox One The Wind in a thousand jaws
Goes playing
Like a child at play
With morning a dawning
And evening a day
Or like teeth that crunch
Or fingers that splay.

Vox Dux Ever the mood of the Wind
Shifts from love to violence-
When the teeth crunch
Lest the wind die in peace
When the short straw is taken
And aggression becomes play
And the passion or war and love fades
In the last stir of air!


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Vox Two Teeth crunch, sky groans-
Vox Dux Blood for the stab
Hunter for the prey

Vox Two And if the wind steals softly
It combs the fleece of the seedpod
Vox Dux like the finger for the tress,
The breath for the lip,
The light for the crevice,
And the shadow for the dip in the sea.

Chorus Two As each mood yet more gentle
Fades from aggression to rest.

Chorus One Broad in the breaking of the water,
The wind spits the sea in broken waves
And pumps it back to the land
Or shoulders it back to the sky.

Vox Dux The windows break in the
Shoulder of the Wind,
And the sun succumbs in the belly,
And the storm wine shreds the womb world
To wine soaked tatters
That plummet to the curve of the east,
And the wine pours and the
East West West West East
Are closer to one!

Vox One The molding of the Wind the
The have of it the
The as of it
The is of it
Is the meeting of the twain
And the twain like shore

Vox Two Is stranger than before.
Tho carols have been hymned
To the ear of such moment,
The hear is less
Apparent than the now.

Vox One The coming is in the stage
Tho stage follow stage
And the power is upped or
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Downed by who is at hand or
What is underfoot.

Vox Dux The coming and going
Is the on of it
And the twain
Is not even in spirit-
For war is no longer the question-
To kill or not to kill
No longer the point-
But who and how much!
To measure in liquid quantities
The souls of men-
Equations with flesh for an answer
And bodies for the form
And minds that flow
From side to side and still
End in blood!
For this the critics rave and the
Very intellectuals crave
My End and Title!

I who love in birth
And live in life
Not death!
I who move
From warmth of touch
And stir of breath
And slant of light
And shade of smile!

The twain twist and tumble
Awkward stumble
Grotesque rumble
Flitting glory.
Delay is a little delay.
Death flows but
Life glows in the spirit of the slain.

V. On Decision

Vox One This meets between the finger and the nail,
Vox Two From the quick to the nail
Is closer than the
Wind from the door
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And the heart from the tug.
Even so near to life is decay.

Voz One In little more than else
Come many things
For death is a pausing
That takes of new flesh and new bone.
Death is as near the beginning
As the end,
As close to birth
As to the nail!

Voz Two words that move the finger
Stir not, return not
The slain!

Voz One Does justice ride on a swift Wind,
Or come at all without a loss,
Or smile nail pink
Without delay,
Or even dare to rest with one-
When so often it misses two?

Voz Two the beginning of justice
Is less than two!
Voz One The stop the wind and even so easy
Is justice for the one!

Voz Two But the Wind
Is the Spirit of Man!
Voz One Which is often just, tho blood
Turns easier than spirit.

Nor can words remove the stain,
The smallest Drop no less than Red,
But lest we dwell in endless pain
Drowning words in laments of dread,
We choose the hand and the
Fingers falls;
We choose the possible and
Demolish the walls:
No justice for the finger
No glory for the hand,
But that which is saved
Can salvage the land!
Page 11 VI. On the Spirit of Man

Voz Dux The land exudes the
White perfume of flowers
And smells the grey sigh of death
In fallen petals,
Tho color rims their sunken bowls!

Voz One The wind pulls the rusted leaf
From the tangled roots of trees
And drops it
Heavily back to it’s grave.
If death for the land be honor,
Much nobler is life for the dead!

Vox Dux Can the autumn branch deny the Wind
Of its skeltering * *(skittering)
Colored kites of leaves, or can the
Frozen branch rob the padded roots
Of the clutching leaves
Or demand their return?
Can one hand defy
The vagaries of the human spirit in its
Flux from soft purr
To full howl?
Can the finger deny the nail
The gesture deny the Wind or
One hour unwind the cloud?

Or who has not seen a
World of leaf-splintered sunlight
Tacked onto a floor
With the jade –green smell
Of pale mushroom and pasted straw?

Vox Two The fondest dream awaits the morning.
Voice One and fond wishes place in a well-
Which sinks sooner- Utopia or hell?
Vox Two Marble and stone
Both fall on the Wind!
Vox Dux Tho this be the nature of things,
I walk heavy the land and
Behind my steps drag the dead!
And I step almost in blood
For the shadows tinge with colors
That often end in red!
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Vox One Duty with compassion is divine
Vox Two For duty alone is the fool’s giddy wine.

Vox Dux When does necessity end?
For each breath gone
Feels no more the wind!
Eternal colors that we all know
Vox One Also end with the natural in death.

Vox Dux But to think to hasten one last sigh!
To shut out the wind
To mark out the Sky
The finger is fallen.
The finger is gone!
And more fingers grow,
But not from this bone!
Does this hand follow the breath of the Wind?
Or slowly lead
In the breath of these men?

Vox Two And if some plaintive gasp
Shall seek the Wind that is not there,
Or lunge to tap the vanished sky,
Or lap the leaves that fled with the Wind
Or catch the waves that fell away…

Vox Dux When the Wind has gone, so still is the land!
No laugh, no moan, no stir of hand.
Vox One And even so the last fled breath,
The last small gasp
Of petal dropped in alien land!

Vox Two Oh to let the petals fall
Upon the bed or in the hall.
Vox One And while the planter toils his hours,
The world is madly picking flowers!

VII. The ostrich and the sand

Vox Dux One petal gone is a sigh forever!
The wind falling from the distant cloud
Lifts and fondles it, and leaves it
To lie in the sharp sweeping
Grass at my feet.
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I cannot help but
Lift it high on finger’s end
And eye it’s curving bowl
That fades like the rain
When it paints the sun!

Voz Two Then leave the flowers beyond the shore,
And let the wild Wind pelt them
In the wine colored straw
And melt them
In the paste of earth,
While here the young flowers
Brandish the gay sun until the
Torch of days burns them down
In the natural falling
Of the Wind.

Vox Dux Tho here the blossoms burn
The white smell of peace,
the short straw
has smothered the Wind beyond
and the dry pant of earth
clogs with the paste of our tears.

Vox One While the noble leave the loin(sic)
In the field
And the madman in his way.
They see blood,
Vox Two But shake their heads
To see what they cannot draw !
Vox One To slide after blood
And take it not, is as noble
As the mother who leaves the
Child to the loin,
And lets the cannon rest at hand,
Lest she injure the paw!

Vox Dux And the sliders fold
When the night barks
And the unseen stir clutches,
And the body warps in callous hands,
And the sibilant missile of fear
Comes home to the
Straw in the dark!

Page 14 VIII. On the Future of Man

Vox Dux Come blow the Wind in the long hall,
Around the open studs of the walls,
The stud leaves of men,
The roof-kite-leaves
That rake the rump of the sky
In grotesqueness and glory.

Vox One And the life in the hall?
Vox Dux Color it lightning, color it grey-
Grey drowning
In yellow beat, and throat blue.
For the high storm breaks into
Long burning windows that
Spin the straw from the
Winnows of the leaves.

Vox Two Come else or more?

Vox Dux Much broader than I
The back of the Wind goes playing-
Madly dancing,
Softly tripping,
Molding the refrain of,
Plucking the Twain of
EAST WEST WEST WEST EAST!

(The Poet Returns to the Poem)
In the crotch of the sky,
A kite rolls,
A Voice goes walking:
A hand on a drunken elbow
Of the Wind-
Enigma in for a ride-
The long ride!
Buckle edge, belly, and back of the Wind,
And savor the song.
Savor the edge.
Savor the belly.
Savor the back.
Savor the storm and the torn Wind!
Man is the spirit in the wind!
The awkwardness, the glory,
The roar, the whimper
The whimper, the …….

Page 15
( the Voice resumes the soliloquy)

Vox Dux The whimper of Wind
That rubs at the edge of the ear,
The spine of Wind that
Bites at the nape,
The bullet of Wind that
Jerks at the sleeve or
Hauls at the shirt
Can emerge in a wall
that leaves me
Less caressed than caressing.
And scrambling to tuck in
The truth- that was lost-
Into the womb of man!
And waiting for his birth
Into awareness.

As the poet stumbles onto the stage-
Lumbering near the Lure
Of Creativity-
He finds mans soul
Tossed from the beauty of the land
To pearly potholes in the sky!
And the soul turns to spirit,
As poet chases spirit
That is riding on the Wind!

The chase melts to embers
With colors that fall beyond the Earth-
Gleaming with the glory
And joy of man!

The poet returns
With yet more words to say!
But the coming or going
Of the spark
Is beyond me!

Miscellaneous: Original Poetry Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Classic | Type: Other | Uploaded On: 07.27.2008 | Pages: 22 | Words: 11.9K | Visits: 496 | Status: Completed