The wealth of our princes

in swords bent

and thrown into meres

in the feared wildernesses of their time

when they were deposed by invaders

their leaderless subjects

lived similarly fettered

until liberated by learning

the alchemy of the word

the occasional brilliance of finance

like sunlight in a forest

I break the legs of my poems

to prevent them escaping from me

in my hobbled search for

my private Excalibur