R. Ostinato, First Cut

I am a boy, you see

Merely a boy
I would say just a boy

But I have been schooled on the distinction

Between merely and just

I am not just, now, in the telling, then in the living

Oh, no, never been just, hardly been merely

Ly, ly, ly, inadequate the ly adverb, loose lip

Of the English language

This codicil, a codicillus, untwining, the braid

Not untwining the braid, but the codicil or

The distinction between the codicil and the will

Now, for they are in play, the Codicil and the Will

Kafka died this year, in his life

This, meaning, in his forty-first year

As this is mine

Mine meaning twine unbraiding

Up on this scaffold

Upon each slice of the blade

HEAVEN!

Between what I saw as an end

What I see as an end, here, now, then 

I am merely a boy, then

I mean then in two ways, now

At that time, and now, since we have settled

The distinction between just and merely

Between, I have said twice too many times

For your average listener’s comfort, merely, now

Between, now, a third time, and then becomes now

Do you see? The fourth? Between?

I am merely a boy, you see

Seeing the owl between this reality

And some other, another, and again the words grow weak

I say this because there are those realities

That do not include you

Yet, and this is not this but is all

For they all include me, all

Yet and now I mean in terms of time

Ah, the pain of the interstices and the twine

I am R. Ostinato, and you are not

Not now, nor yet ever then never this, merely just a moment

Slice Two

R. Ostinato

Let me tell you about his eyes

They were watching me, then

As I am watching you, now

Hidden, you are not

Lying, I may well be, yet, in wait

His eyes were lying in wait

All the while I felt them upon me

But I did not act, dismissing

The heat of his stare

Calling me out, now and then

But certainly then

That time of which I speak

His, as mine, now, then

Are upon you, where you hide

I hoped for more than those eyes

These, turned on you, now, as you wait

And I am waiting, lying

If I say that I did not fear him, them

Those eyes

Then I lie

In waiting, which is Life

Ringing across the landscape

A horde in search of soon dead

Bring them out, came the calls

Secreted, they, hiding, did not come forth

And all who did not were found out

Despite the hiding

Hiding is lying in wait of something

Salvation, hope, a faith bigger than

The blades and bullets of the twine

Coming unbraided, merely, because they can

Hoist the flag of your choices

Combined to lead to this moment

Let me tell you about the eyes of the Owl

They caught me slipping in my vigil

But I was a boy, as I have said

Marie Roget - Creeping Normalcy (Prose and Poems, May 2010) Codicil 0002