KING OF KINGS

ʰᵉ ˡⁱᵛᵉˢ ᵃⁿᵈ ʳᵉⁱᵍⁿˢ *&* c̲o̲n̲q̲u̲e̲r̲s̲ ̲t̲h̲e̲ ̲w̲o̲r̲l̲d̲.

[bearthur]

there is sunlight that gently falls away from him in shards of more light; ᵗʰᵉ ˢᵐᵃˡˡᵉˢᵗ ᵐⁱʳᵃᶜˡᵉ ᵒᶠ ᵐᵘˡᵗⁱᵖˡⁱᶜᵃᵗⁱᵒⁿ, arthur the small god of camelot, 𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐮𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬.

private & selective blog for  KING  ARTHUR,  inspired by traditional arthurian literature and a variety of other sources ... developed by amanda. 

[bearthur]

the first memory, opening up inside, either like door or the eye of an oracle, is of a boy in a courtyard. the golden-greens of his faded childhood, like the softened belly of the world, & the image of his right hand trembling from effort, white-knuckled and pink-cheeked, & the smell of the sun like salt and the earth, & the fragmented vagueness of his brother's taunts. kay, not yet a man, but sure of his olderness and bold because of it, laughing with a certain naïve cruelty that was not his nature, but a bad habit he still keeps. memory overlaps the present, the strange vitreous quality of it, that makes he see the past within the folds of what he sees now. arthur sees himself as he also sees his nephew, right hand struggling with the longsword, pale knuckles and a red face from anger, which makes him think of his sister, the two of them. 

the second memory, worn at the edges, comes like a sigh, & speaks of things better left hidden in half-shadow: it is only a secret if it is true, it can only be true if one speaks of it. a boy that resembles too much a mother: a golden child (past) ? or dark one (now) ? a collection of superimposed memories, left untouched, curled up at the corner of his mind, the horror and the passion of a kiss existing at the same time — how many years ago... ? his nephew would be 15. & he looks away. he stands at the edge of the courtyard as if on the edge of awareness of a revelation. his eyes, again, seek mordred's right hand. the sword looks too heavy for him. 

he hears himself say:  ❝ have you tried it with your other hand ? ❞

[joyuex]

he was never at ease with childhood – a stranger to the world of slippery laughter and palms sticky with sweets. there had been a forging to him, a beginning drenched in fire and hardened by water. years spent under the hammer, shaped and re - shaped until he was sharp edged and keen. but a sword is not a boy, just as a boy is not a sword. there had been no secreted sweets for him, no sticky - fingered nursery games. metal does not laugh or play, metal does not want – it eats what it is given, learns what it is taught. his childhood was a broken - bodied one, a life laid upon the altar of chivalry and sacrificed to a king he barely knew ... a life given both once and a thousand times, and willingly given once more as he enters into arthur's small realm of childhood fancy.

he lays himself at his king's feet, head bowed and eyes at long last shut, prostrate as if in prayer. enchantment turned to something else – a private sort of worship, lonesome in this world of play and games. ❛❛ i was not hiding ... only arriving. i sent my squires ahead. ❜❜ the children buzz like flies : a giggle here, a whisper there. fingers tracing lines into the wool of his cloak and sending his sword rattling in his sheath. he would free himself from them, if not for arthur. would retreat back into the known world of ground and sky and self. instead he simply raises his head, as docile as a doe.

❛❛ merlin has no right to drag you back if you do not wish to go. you are a king, after all. ❜❜ straightforward words by a straightforward man, spoken without thought or shame, only set jaw and furrowed brow and a mind for arthur's right.

[bearthur]

there is a small tale happening here, the entire world encompassed by an acorn: this too, in its simplicity, is a myth of greatness. this is summer and the dragons are asleep. the swords glisten, left by the water, unpicked by the hands of knights who rise no more taller than children. an armour, unpicked, looks drowsy under the sun. have you ever seen a garden bathed in light like this ? where human softness lies between two men who sit on the grass and the sun exists simultaneously in the sky and in golden eyes. have you ever seen camelot not as myth but as a manifestation of prayer ? camelot as an extension of a man. a man as an extention of god. but a child sees no king nor saint. this is a friend and the friend says: ❝ i reckon a king who does whatever he pleases, regardless of the desires of others, might be a tyrant. ❞

this story invites you to stare at a king as if he is a man: pink cheeks, sun-touched skin, tousled hair in which no crown sits. a body in the world like any other. do you see how transformative this can be ? for a man to see a saint as he sees himself ? this story has no teeth, even as it is sacramental & incarnational. the world shudders and sighs in satisfaction. here is a sanctified moment even when he would not have it in such a way. he laughs lightly, leaning his head back. & he stares at the sun, unblinking, & the sun looks back upon him. ❝ i do enjoy your honesty, lancelot. you look like you are about to hunt down an old man. ❞

[unknights]

HAND AGAINST FLESH , HAND AGAINST METAL , hand against the soft skin between @kinsword's neck and back , a finger pressed so quickly it may not have been pressed at all, nothing left but the sound of metal against metal in a click , click , click as armor falls apart in lancelot's hands. outside of the tent, rain pours, water dripping into the ground and their boots are stained with mud & dirt & blood. THIS IS THE KING & THIS IS A WAR & THIS IS HOW THE STORY GOES. between lancelot & arthur there is only cloth and the weight of choice — his voice is quiet or muffled by the way the water drips , and drips , and drips. " i reckon we ought to light a fire. "

[bearthur]

rain that falls mutely, with the gentleness of a hand, piece of piece of armor discarded and sitting between them, the waiting remnants of half-spoken metaphor — if the rain is quiet, they are quieter. the water, the continuous blue and greys of it, colors of redemption, reminds arthur of days before the war. his memory yields easily to this new gravity, with his eyes closed, as flesh remembers what flesh knows: the warmth of a palm pressed to his back, in prayer or in passion, the rapture falls somewhere in between. & memory has so little power compared to touch, to voice, to hunger. the rains falls outside. arthur feels himself falling too, desperately or softly, until his body presses itself against lancelot's. he says, his voice between a gasp and a sigh:  ❝ the fire will do little against the cold. but there is dry wood in the corner. ❞

[joyuex]

his heart is a birdly beast, a mass of down and claws. he can feel it, just there, a battering of plumage against his ribs, one careless foot catching on lung. he could stop it – could tear it out and dash it on the cobbles below. his hand is already reaching for it, digging amongst brocade and silk and halfway to his chest before he stops and casts it away. the bird beats on, its frantic energy not killed, but carried. taking shape in the stuttering tread of his feet, the to - and - fro flicker of his gaze. and all of this for what? for who? for him, of course, for him ... he had known him before he had seen him. had felt him in the tugging of his chest, the thrumming transformation in his heart.

a shimmer of gold, the ghost of a herald's horn. and there! his personal god awash in sunlight.

there had been a moment of collision, of two worlds joining – the laughter of children, a heavenly angel's choir. the swirl of a girl's tattered dress, a flash of golden eyes. and here his heart had started it's wild dance, here his feet had started moving despite his will. he is a man made defenseless : sans armor, sans all. naked under heaven's light ... he comes back to himself in starts. the jolt of a hand, the stilling of a foot. original sin at last taking hold : the horrible need to hide from the holy, the fear of his god's gaze. he sequesters himself behind a hovel, settles down amongst earth and stone. his head falls to his chest, his hands raising to hold it, and slowly his heart begins to calm its wild chatter. for a moment that is the end – his world once again made still.

and yet, and yet! he turns almost without feeling it, his eyes flashing out and back. and there, still there, king arthur sits, as radiant as the sun. he watches him with mouth agape : in awe of his easy smiles and gentle manners, in awe of his rightness with the world. a breath escapes him, too small the be a sigh ... and before it is finished arthur's eyes are upon him, pushing all the air from his lungs. for a beat all is silent. the children cease their playing, the birds stop their singing – his very heart stops his beating. all is gold and gold and gold again, a world washed in the color of his king's eyes.

his rises slowly, mechanically, numb fingers wiping the muck from his breaches. his head dips into the slightest of bows, brown eyes still locked on gold – as if this is a fairy's enchantment, both cast and undone by sight alone. ❛❛ your majesty. ❜❜ the words are barely more than a whisper, though he doubts not that arthur will hear them. such is this enchantment, this space shared by them and them alone. ❛❛ i did not expect you here. ❜❜ / @kinsword

[bearthur]

the saints too are hungry — they feast in small humans pleasures. the stories do not speak of arthur outside of the walls he built, where the light finds him freely. here, a man is a man again. not of flesh but for the flesh, as he oscillates between his lost boyhood and the divine, consumed in light for the sake of light, multiplied and stretched endlessly, until he forgets his beginnings. saints do not avoid their self-sacrifice, even if they resent them. & light touches him as light does: recognizing itself. arthur sits lazily, easily, among the children that run around him. & their laughter is his laugher, which is an easy and willing sound that echoes in the courtyard. let at least one story be about this: his golden, sun-touched throat moving as he throws his head back. the warm, solid lenght of his body is not a thing of myth here, but real enough so that the children touch him and this, he thinks, is what the stories should be about.

arthur now counting the remnants of his childhood, watching the children running through trees in a ceaseless interweaving of of his past and his present. he hungers for the old days in the woods. but the weight of the future presses on, like a hand, upon him. the warmth of the light, like a kiss, reminds him to press back against the future, unyielding, so certain of his place, so certain of his duty he barely remembers his own hunger, the animal in his belly calling for childhood. & now the boy he once was watches from behind the eyes of the man he is now, until he finds, among the green of the trees, two big brown eyes, a flock of featherly hair, and arthur's lips curl easily in a smile. ❝ sir lancelot.. hiding in the trees again ? ❞

he bows his head, motions for the children near him to bow too. a little girl giggles and blushes and hides behind his back. ❝ i am only here until merlin undoubtedly finds me and drags me back into the castle. ❞

[unknights]

LANCELOT DU LAC & ARTHUR PENDRAGON  

hyacinth changed into a flower by nicolas rene jollain the younger  //  mary oliver // the xx // virginia woolf // the iliad // florence and the machine // edna st vincent millay // william shakespeare // richard siken // pentatonix // richard siken // pentatonix // achilles lamenting the death of patroclus by galvin hamilton // @kinsword // marie howe // @unknights // curtius // emily brontë // the queens of persia at the feet of alexander, also called the tent of darius  by charles le brun // richard siken // victor hugo