BEING PRESENT

A video clip of Checo:
a  glimpse into another world
wholly out of reach.

A face idolized: more than mere recording
and not just wishful thinking
or imagination playing tricks.

But, eyes closed, listening to the voice
of an intimate stranger I've come to know -

I'm no longer here at all, but there,
where distance and ocean have ceased to exist.

And it feels like coming home.

GUINEVERE

A Villanelle..

Guinevere are you for real, or just pure invention?
For time obscures origin and poets embellish lore,
so now we cannot know the truth of your ascension.

Were you Camelot's bone of contention
in those bygone days of yore,
when along with dashing Lancelot you divided Arthur's nation?

Fairest face and golden hair made you centre of attention -
and lifelong obsession of Cornwall's noble Boar.
But still we do not know the truth of your ascension.

Draco Standard flying in great ostentation,
while many secretly denounced you as whore.
Guinevere are you for real, or just pure invention?

Loud the clash of steel at Camlan's invasion.
Your infidelity sparked that fateful bloody war.
Yet still we do not know the truth of your ascension.

Do historians labour under misapprehension,
or did passion destabilize Camelot's core?
Guinevere are you for real, or just pure invention?
For we'll probably never know the truth of your ascension.