Unto An Isle

 

Unto an isle, upon the star one flies,

That frantic comet through the ether curving,

Which toward the blue expanses now hurls, burning –

A sea that’s teal and a cyan sky.

Upon the isle, one at his harp doth play,

Outcast from heaven, hell, and purgatory –

For not to sin, and not to virtue’s glory

He’s dedicated any of his lays.

Oh star, tell: what doth such a sad song mean?

He strums his notes across the east and west,

And breathes his longing for subconsciousness

Amid a golden chamber’s beds and screens:

    “And since thou shalt not take me to thy breast,

    I’ll dwell upon this isle of perfect rest.”

Wisdom

 

My life I’d forsake, for it keeps from me

Those secrets that reside beyond my death:

I wish the tomb should seal this weary flesh,

That I might learn all silent mysteries –

For in the darksome world below the grave,

Beyond the vastness through which ravens call,

The dead eat wisdom in a banquet hall:

Those fruits and breads of knowledge that I crave.

 

Dreams bear me thither… Now on door I’ve knocked –

When cracks the thunder of the lightning’s ire!

And creak the hinges, showing what’s inside…

Already at my back the portal’s locked,

And odors sweet swell up above a fire –

Enticing devils, who’ll eat those who’re wise.

On Some Far Worlds

 

Beneath some unknown stars, on some far worlds,

Perhaps the rivers drain out from the seas,

The droplets drip from out the land upwards,

And duplicates of you and I do breathe.

On some earth might I thrive, a dashing swain,

And you hold court above me as a queen –

On other, might I toil as ragged slave,

And you be cast to aching labors mean.

But on all earths, one thing would e’er hold true:

That should our versions meet but just one time,

Some recognition would I feel towards you,

And tenderness and love’d be next in line.

    And on each world I should forever plead –

    But your word would for aye be “no” to me.

 

 

 

 

Apollo and Python

 

“Moth-winged wyvern! Through ray-full soft-hard sun

At lord is twisting: mouth-great, venom-veined

At shining-fleshed… the molten spit of tongue

Strikes chariot, gold swan-brought trembling wain

Air-loft… one thousand shafts down-casting, he

Of eye-depth depthless! Poisons, wounds, and roars:

Proud child of Leto pierces enemy

And through-shoots brain, and draws the sparkling gore:

A drink for music, toast to notes divine,

Eternal vision, beauty of that light

And lyre’s speaking: Python sheds his wine

To quaff today – tomorrow, never mind!”

    So sleeping, breathing deep sulphuric smells,

    The tripod-sitting speaks her vap’rous spells.

 

 

 

 

The Fled One

 

A gust slams shut the door – a glass vase falls –

A thousand shards delight the chandelier’s

Keen light, while on a lavish sofa lolls

That odalisque who sped from glossy spheres,

Saloons to frequent. Cheeks and breasts shine flushed,

Liqueurs and sugars close mascaraed eyes.

Her wracking cough in slumber’s ease lies hushed –

Above, the cloud-rafts skim upon the skies.

Why ought I seek to fall asleep as well?

The clock is here, and keeps its conscious click.

Beyond the ceiling sound the depthless bells

Which strike the flesh, and crack the edifice…

    In dreams the mistress of the stars slips down

    On March winds, veiling Fate beneath her gown.

 

 

 

 

What Guardians

 

What guardians surround thy pierced-through heart?

Ten thousand sylphs flit nimbly ’round that meat

Which from a dais bleeds its lifebloods tart,

And change into a peacock him who pleads

But for one drop to sup on, with their wands.

What fortresses enclose thy gushing chest?

A wall, a moat – and prickly pois’nous lawns

Which stab and burn the suitor’s toes, unless

He find some wings to spare him that abuse.

And what of him who, lawns and guards o’erflown,

Doth taste thy spoutings red, thy lovely juice?

Another sylph is he, an airy drone.

    But as for me, I’ll fast in deserts sere,

    Where, pining, towards the wall and moat I’ll peer.

 

 

 

 

Sarcophagus and Sphinxes

 

The chaparral plants tremble in the gusts

While pollens blow, and flowers flee their stems

To wander where the weather deems they must.

All evening overbrim wet heaven’s wells;

All night the petals ride on streams that wend

Unto a coffin bobbing on the swell:

The black sarcophagus of he who sends

Down to the molten fonts captives of lust.

And o’er those hissing springs of deepest hell,

Two sphinxes perch, one wicked and one just,

Patient to greet, with screeching howls fell,

Their lord, whom all souls one day shall attend.

    Why blows he on the sweetest winds his blooms?

    ’Tis so we might the more bewail our doom.

 

 

 

 

The Maze

 

A brash youth, striding o’er the blooms of Sleep

(That verdant planet, emerald in space),

Did chance one morn upon a magic maze

Of neat-clipped hedges, stretching miles deep –

Through which he roamed, before he knew he did…

And soon caught he the singing voice of one

Who, shielded by an awning from the sun,

Appeared – warning without, roses amid.

 

And spoke this maiden: “Darst thou come me nigh?

Beneath my body yawns Night’s wide abyss:

Yawning in sleep, eager to swallow quick

The passionate youth, to doubtful Paradise.

Is’t solid earth I lie on?” With a kiss,

The youth awoke – and knew not what to think.

 

 

 

 

It’s Flown and Gone

 

It’s flown and gone, the saucer of the skies,

Where many a damsel holding fruit bowls swooned:

No more, that crystal furniture I spied;

No more that roving, haunted, humming gloom

Known in cool midnights… Now there’re thorns galore:

A fosse of briars where poor wights are stung;

And simp’ring porcupines and manticores

Gore many a man with flashing spines fast-flung.

The ones who die watch waves and wavelets slink

Across a tossing sea that’s seen straight through.

A case of flawless stone, glitt’ring and pink,

Sits on its floor, where once a fruit tree grew…

    Some say the disc shall fly in cruel return –

    But not before that flood to steam hath burned.

Phoenix and Elephant

 

A phoenix asked an elephant of white,

“What is the oldest thing thou mightst recall?”

“Remember I,” quoth elephant, “the plight

Of those who sought to steal a silver ball.

Upon a post of porphyry ’twas perched,

Ascending miles through empty worlds above.

Each hardy heart of daring vainly searched

Some means t’ascend, some chariot of doves –

But perished each!” And spake the richly-plumed,

Bright bird: “This thing my memory forsakes

Each time I burn, to learn of life anew.”

Off flapped the creature, nestled in a cave –

    Then straight by fire was snapped up in a flash,

    And burned down low into a golden ash.

 

 

 

 

The Tower

 

What hands are these, fine-fingered, velvet-gloved,

Grasping through midnight? Walls of black conceal

Their owner’s arms, and form, and face which steals

Through bedroom, whisp’ring thoughts to its beloved.

Twelve years times twelve a tower’s bricks were placed,

Its spiral arches inching towards the moon.

One eve a god descended, preaching doom –

One night an earthquake left the tower razed.

My love sprawls ’neath a grove in endless black,

And gold and red glint rich fruits in the limbs.

Her neck and belly glow as white as sin –

Dim jewels lend a darkness that she lacks.

    Those velvet hands I’ll watch, twelve nights                       times twelve,

    Approach our bed, to pull us both to hell.

 

 

 

 

The Vampire

 

No man’s e’er seen its garden ’midst the sands –

And woman? None can say if aye or nay.

Those backwards-walking only find their way,

Past draining dunes, into that florid land.

Should traveler arrive, the palms would waft

His head with breeze, and vines extend him grapes.

His veins would pulse full languidly through days,

E’en while a voice might whisper curses soft.

I see one drop fall ever from the sun:

It is red wine the withered earth must sip.

A corpse still thirsts, and’s crawling in its crypt –

Despair’s a bloom not drownèd by that rum

    Which strikes the cactus, makes carnations dream,

    And brings the screaming traveler to grief.

 

 

 

 

Coma

 

They bear his casket to the shriveled sea,

The sleeper unreclaimed… The waves are hands

That push his soul – and where the coffin lands,

There lives no friend, yet neither enemy.

In countries of the living moon he walks –

No eyelid opens. Wailing o’er the mounds,

Gray trains of mourners pass the gurgling spouts

Which drain to chasms nearby where he stalks.

 

A dozen princes reign above that gulf

That gives on to the flames – then, gorgeous seat:

Oh, glimpse of a king! Glimpse of landscapes dire!

Scepter, sphere, and crown… His brittle skull

The fairies spray with atomizers: Sweet

His ashen brain – sweet agony of fires!

The Dragon

 

Up through the frosted caverns of the north,

Around moraines, and underneath a veil

Of gray from which descends the tapping hail,

A path through deepest wilderness leads forth.

The days and nights are lost from reckoning

Before the freezing traveler espies

A glacier’s face of icy black – which hides

The lower lair of something scaled, thick-winged,

 

Long-clawed and wheezing… And from tunnel mouth,

A gleam of coins and gems peeks forth, to dance

Upon the valley’s mirror-walls of ice…

Into this den once strode a naked youth

Who shining seemed, and bore a flaming lance –

And none knows what befell him, or his might.

The Paradise

 

Is love or sleep the paradise of earth?

Most times I think it’s sleep, for one I love

Hath stol’n from out the realm of grief and mirth

As silently as did the haloed dove

Steal down to him at midmost of the world.

Does one enfold the other at its breast,

Caressing it as darling boy or girl?

Is one the first, the other of its flesh?

This world’s love in bitter streams hath drowned –

In dreams the drops of blood are seeping still –

And underneath the enigmatic clouds,

An evening wind sweeps meekly o’er a hill.

    Our rest lies here, think two, one saved, one lost,

    While love thinks he upon the middle cross.

 

 

 

 

Urwelt

 

A forest, nighttime black, like bogs of mire –

Cruel jungle, drowned in shadows for an age –

Behind these rise a mountain like a spire

Of some god robbed of heart, and brain, and name.

The thickets creak and chatter, squawk and groan…

Now hush hath fall’n – now sounds arise again.

No creature-soul conceives what terrors roam

Far, far within the heart of muggy fen.

One billion years before the torch of thought

Inside the deepest copse or cavern reached,

From out the screens of fronds and wispy fogs

The frills and horns of sluggard reptiles peeked.

    Sharp lightning’s barb! Now soft sky’s torn, and drips       –

    And rain pours on those horrors briefly glimpsed.

 

 

 

 

The Saloon

 

I.

 

Sarsaparilla pours out on the felt,

And ghosts of piano notes hang with the smoke

One silent second after Death has dealt

The marked cards which he hides inside his cloak.

Gold coins and bills lie scattered on the floor,

And from the gloom, a wooden Indian’s eyes

Take in the grim stain of the spreading gore:

That pooling black in which the card-cheat lies.

 

Door hinges creak, blue fumes drape like a pall.

The shooter’s gone, and crystal glasses blaze

With bursts of sunlight slipping through the doors.

A labyrinth of mirrors on the walls

Makes numberless the gambling toughs who gaze

With blasé corneas upon the corpse.

II.

 

The room rests somber, cold. The morning sun

Reveals the stain no scrubbing could remove;

And soft beams creep like insect legs upon

The broad clean floor and tabletops, and soothe

The bartender who rinses mug and stein.

Kind winter light assures him Christmas nears,

While in a corner sparkles the young pine

Bedecked with angels, stars, tinsel, and spheres.

 

He looks not in the mirrors, for he knows

They hold the image of that far-off hill

On which, so oft, the crowds a sight doth bring

Around a tree… But now, an ornament throws

That image in his eyes against his will –

And in a glimpse, he sees the murderer swing.

The Sleeping Corpse

 

Where sun doth glow as brightly off the dunes

As glows itself – where scarce a soul is seen

In desert gorge – by passing light of moon,

A door of rock, half-hidden, shows by gleams

Two carvings of the lamassu: Their eyes

Would any wight who views them grant a dread

Slow-stealing, soft – and to his mind would sigh

These soundless words: Dare not approach the bed

 

Of that which dreams within… And memory

That all men keep in chamber innermost

Of soul, would rise to vision: Shambling form,

Which out from’s sealed coffin has pushed free,

Now treads deep vaults and passageways unclosed –

And in an age to come, shall reach the door.

The Death

 

Moonlight lives in the eucalyptus limbs.

In later hours, the dawn hath touched the leaves,

And children splash in rivulet and pool.

In calmer depths of black, the shadows swim.

Upon the slopes, the bouts of wind brush reeds

And shake the threads young spiders have unspooled.

The rivulets drain meekly towards the surf

To bleed into the sea, where sailboats drift:

 

White triangles on blue which disappears

In some far stretch be-hazed, beyond the eye.

In hours to come, again the moon shall lift,

To glow her calm on every place she peers –

And sleeping pow’rs, veiled everyplace, shall sigh

One million years, ’til the death of all this.

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