Masquerade Ball
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By M. Benjamin Thorne
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Masquerade Ball
At the lion’s court you cannot count
ev’ry marquess, duke, margrave, viscount
that preened and purred en promenade,
though certain subjects truly awed:
the jocund jaguar’s jacquard dress
proud puma empress did impress;
its baroque brocade broke
barricades of silence; roque
players awoke from bored stupor
to applaud—but spy sly cougar,
her corseted couplet (quite compressed)
caused many a suitor to feel stressed
in his constraint. And behold in linen white
bold snow leopard’s gown, that in light
shifts to golden brown (and so you see
a leopard can change spots easily).
Now comes prancing the panther prince
with his salty saunter dashed with mince,
and on his arm tigress burns with shame
at being brought by one so lame.
Crusted with diamond luxe, the lynx
finds herself outshined by the sphinx
of tonight’s masquerade ball,
a svelte beast holding all in thrall
whom none know or can recognize
(and so, immediately, despise):
not a cheetah from the veldt nor
ocelot from Camelot, but a poor
common stray, with subtle grace
and refined mien, on whose face
no mask was laid, no camouflage,
but with a simple smile can sabotage
a country, crown, or lion’s heart--
and at her entrance all fell apart.
How dare one of such low birth
presume to crash their demesne of mirth?
Responding to this breach in law,
hackles raised, guests unsheathed claw;
among hisses, spitting, and caterwaul
much milk was spilled in that fair hall.
But the cat proceeded to the throne
grinning, as though a dog with a bone,
and spoke these words to the king
in clarion voice that like bell did ring:
“Your time is up and rule at an end.
Towards the meek all things must bend.
Too long have we been denied
save what you deigned to provide,
starving in dark alleys and cold streets
whilst you sleep with fine gold sheets.
No more shall we settle for some scraps,
nor fall again for your alluring traps
of something better on the horizon--
often offered, then denied, a prison
of promise made shamelessly in bad faith,
making hope a breathless wraith.
Yesterday was yours, tomorrow ours--
and today, in the old regime’s dying hours,
there shall be repentance and redemption,
or if not, resistance and destruction.
Now’s the time to choose your fate,
ere we our violent urges sate.”
Sad to say, the halls flowed red
as many noble cats were bled,
and in the dawn of the new order
the common cats redrew the border
between the haves and have-nots,
not even sparing three small thoughts
as they donned their new rich mantles
and placed shackles ‘round the ankles
of their fallen foes, of how closely
they resembled them, how costly
their vengeance; nor could they hear
the sharpening of blade and spear
as those whose rule they had justly shorn
plotted and schemed, the cycle reborn.
At the lion’s court you cannot count
ev’ry marquess, duke, margrave, viscount
that preened and purred en promenade,
though certain subjects truly awed:
the jocund jaguar’s jacquard dress
proud puma empress did impress;
its baroque brocade broke
barricades of silence; roque
players awoke from bored stupor
to applaud—but spy sly cougar,
her corseted couplet (quite compressed)
caused many a suitor to feel stressed
in his constraint. And behold in linen white
bold snow leopard’s gown, that in light
shifts to golden brown (and so you see
a leopard can change spots easily).
Now comes prancing the panther prince
with his salty saunter dashed with mince,
and on his arm tigress burns with shame
at being brought by one so lame.
Crusted with diamond luxe, the lynx
finds herself outshined by the sphinx
of tonight’s masquerade ball,
a svelte beast holding all in thrall
whom none know or can recognize
(and so, immediately, despise):
not a cheetah from the veldt nor
ocelot from Camelot, but a poor
common stray, with subtle grace
and refined mien, on whose face
no mask was laid, no camouflage,
but with a simple smile can sabotage
a country, crown, or lion’s heart--
and at her entrance all fell apart.
How dare one of such low birth
presume to crash their demesne of mirth?
Responding to this breach in law,
hackles raised, guests unsheathed claw;
among hisses, spitting, and caterwaul
much milk was spilled in that fair hall.
But the cat proceeded to the throne
grinning, as though a dog with a bone,
and spoke these words to the king
in clarion voice that like bell did ring:
“Your time is up and rule at an end.
Towards the meek all things must bend.
Too long have we been denied
save what you deigned to provide,
starving in dark alleys and cold streets
whilst you sleep with fine gold sheets.
No more shall we settle for some scraps,
nor fall again for your alluring traps
of something better on the horizon--
often offered, then denied, a prison
of promise made shamelessly in bad faith,
making hope a breathless wraith.
Yesterday was yours, tomorrow ours--
and today, in the old regime’s dying hours,
there shall be repentance and redemption,
or if not, resistance and destruction.
Now’s the time to choose your fate,
ere we our violent urges sate.”
Sad to say, the halls flowed red
as many noble cats were bled,
and in the dawn of the new order
the common cats redrew the border
between the haves and have-nots,
not even sparing three small thoughts
as they donned their new rich mantles
and placed shackles ‘round the ankles
of their fallen foes, of how closely
they resembled them, how costly
their vengeance; nor could they hear
the sharpening of blade and spear
as those whose rule they had justly shorn
plotted and schemed, the cycle reborn.
a/theism
Odd, the definite certainty of articles,
always one of many or just the one:
where is there space for mystery,
the uncertain, the quantifiably unknown?
We need a place to express the middle
between a and the--how else to riddle
life’s complexities?—a verbal Schrödinger’s box,
a veritable pocket dimension for both
the verifiable and the –un. Take atheism:
too sure of its abnegation in the face
of proof’s absence; could it be replaced
with a theism neither resolute nor relative,
nor the indifference of the agnostic,
but a diagnostic that defers and upholds
any and all possibilities to which it refers,
a place where God can and cannot be,
where fulcrum-balanced doubt and faith
co-exist in searching earnestness?
But what to call it? It is a whisper in the mind,
it is the soul, it is the metaphysical light
pooling in the farthest black hole.
Odd, the definite certainty of articles,
always one of many or just the one:
where is there space for mystery,
the uncertain, the quantifiably unknown?
We need a place to express the middle
between a and the--how else to riddle
life’s complexities?—a verbal Schrödinger’s box,
a veritable pocket dimension for both
the verifiable and the –un. Take atheism:
too sure of its abnegation in the face
of proof’s absence; could it be replaced
with a theism neither resolute nor relative,
nor the indifference of the agnostic,
but a diagnostic that defers and upholds
any and all possibilities to which it refers,
a place where God can and cannot be,
where fulcrum-balanced doubt and faith
co-exist in searching earnestness?
But what to call it? It is a whisper in the mind,
it is the soul, it is the metaphysical light
pooling in the farthest black hole.
Dream Song for John Berryman
All the world like a woolen lover
once did seem on Henry’s side.
Then came a departure.
--John Berryman, “Dream Song I”
Henry heard a terrible sound--
little Henry hid. In all them years
of hiding thoughts they wouldn’t do as he bid,
but came crashing down upon his head,
words popping out like shotgun shells
on a paper bed.
(and God forbid, I sometimes dream
of exiting the same, but for a touch
from my son’s small hand; and yet. . .)
Oh what a thing it is to do and be, but when to be done?
This Henry pondered often, between a bottle
or three, but no sip could soften
the fall of daylight, murderous bright, the drop
of feat in verse, a body in water, or like his feeling
proverbial shit-on-sole of universal shoe.
On a bridge he swayed, did Henry, between genius
and just broken glass—and many a time I find
myself standing beside him, faltering in belief
of life; but step into his page flush with words
like thick grass, so pleasing to run through,
one cannot help but laugh and lay down after,
breathe in fresh verse richly content, and sigh.
(if only for one breath’s pause, smooth
on the intake, and ragged as it exits
with extended claws.
That is what brings me through the day:
a poem, a gasp, the stubborn fish-out-of-water
working of my jaws.)
All the world like a woolen lover
once did seem on Henry’s side.
Then came a departure.
--John Berryman, “Dream Song I”
Henry heard a terrible sound--
little Henry hid. In all them years
of hiding thoughts they wouldn’t do as he bid,
but came crashing down upon his head,
words popping out like shotgun shells
on a paper bed.
(and God forbid, I sometimes dream
of exiting the same, but for a touch
from my son’s small hand; and yet. . .)
Oh what a thing it is to do and be, but when to be done?
This Henry pondered often, between a bottle
or three, but no sip could soften
the fall of daylight, murderous bright, the drop
of feat in verse, a body in water, or like his feeling
proverbial shit-on-sole of universal shoe.
On a bridge he swayed, did Henry, between genius
and just broken glass—and many a time I find
myself standing beside him, faltering in belief
of life; but step into his page flush with words
like thick grass, so pleasing to run through,
one cannot help but laugh and lay down after,
breathe in fresh verse richly content, and sigh.
(if only for one breath’s pause, smooth
on the intake, and ragged as it exits
with extended claws.
That is what brings me through the day:
a poem, a gasp, the stubborn fish-out-of-water
working of my jaws.)
Broken Infinities
for Yael
The world is full of small miracles:
the perfect math of a snail shell’s
curl; the clever way Ammolite traps
the aurora borealis in stone. And you,
the way a thousand generations of
genes knit themselves in a subtle stitch
to make your smile, helixes twisting
in their contained infinities to form
the sinews of your heart. But
amidst the intertwining: a break
that tore the woof or warp in the weave
of nucleotides, the broken spindles
that would spiral out their splintered design
through blood cells to the chest wall
behind your breast. Bashert, you
are so perfect except that little sliver
of corrupted code. How could part
of what makes you a part of me
also cause you to depart? I’d reach
into each cell and pluck the fuckers
out with my teeth, spit them into hell.
But instead, I sit days of miles away, able
only to love you, and wait, and wait.
for Yael
The world is full of small miracles:
the perfect math of a snail shell’s
curl; the clever way Ammolite traps
the aurora borealis in stone. And you,
the way a thousand generations of
genes knit themselves in a subtle stitch
to make your smile, helixes twisting
in their contained infinities to form
the sinews of your heart. But
amidst the intertwining: a break
that tore the woof or warp in the weave
of nucleotides, the broken spindles
that would spiral out their splintered design
through blood cells to the chest wall
behind your breast. Bashert, you
are so perfect except that little sliver
of corrupted code. How could part
of what makes you a part of me
also cause you to depart? I’d reach
into each cell and pluck the fuckers
out with my teeth, spit them into hell.
But instead, I sit days of miles away, able
only to love you, and wait, and wait.
Nominated for the Pushcart and Best of the Net, M. Benjamin Thorne is an Associate Professor of Modern European History at Wingate University. Possessed of a lifelong love of history and poetry, he is interested in exploring the synergy between the two. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Last Syllable Lit, Door=Jar, Heimat Review, and Innisfree Poetry Journal. In 2026 he won the Rough Diamond Poetry Award and placed first in Lazuli Literary Group's Writing Contest. He lives and sometimes sleeps in Charlotte, NC.
