I
Appeasements on the rim of the caldera…
measured footsteps deliberated
on plasma consecrated clotted ground.
The priests’ eyes of remoteness,
like clear stones look past the temporal field
piercing malfeasance with dismissive gestures
while incantations gutter outward
amid the amassing immolations.
The obsidian blade assures
no lasting atonement,
cycles accumulate new trespasses,
generate new hunger in the gods,
perpetuating unending crucifixions
of the id.
The smoke of the sacrifice purpling
at the edge of the known
deflects bleakly into
the sonic dark atmosphere.
II
All deeds have fallen to dust,-
dead spores suspended
in emoted volitions.
Of all that was written,
nothing will remain,
the tongues of sedition
stamped down amid
the praises of the overseers,
leave only the silence stones.
The creatures of Prometheus disperse,
are covered in iridium, are laid down
in the black Jurassic mat.
Those newly born into twilight
succumb silently on the charnel ground.
III
Lives, small-minded,
lived in corners of deceit,
conceived and regulated
in the rat run,- polarized,
strung out, bent under laws
that bind us to earth,
rush on adrenalated
in the wreck of days.
Where-to these enduring
expectant lives, whose fears
articulate lies of preservation,
who fester day-long
in inescapable self-deception
and loss of faith, ultimately wresting
promise into lost days?
What-for?
IV
Of artifice nothing will remain:
the Iron Pillar of Chandra,
the temple dance, the fire altar,
pattern of the jola drum…
these lie buried in labyrinths of untraceable
and irretrievable time.
Gone the full ardour of life
expressed in subtle craft
and overt contrivance;
invention spun into a myriad arts lost:
masters of fire, shapers of metal,
those who augured from charred bits of bone,
they who grappled eagles in their middens,
she that weaves the pattern
of earth and sky into fabric, removed.
From their dust their art shall not be revived.
Lured across crimson seas, led over yellow sands
intoxicated by visions, those drawn in
dreaming the many temptations
proffered in the siren’s call,
neither do they return;
the earthen tracks of their caravans
close like the wake of a wave
in a sea of oblivion.
V
Cursed objects unearthed
drive the fever of the mind,
roving over subterranean rhythms,
delving in dark streams rushing below,
ignorant of stars,-
ignorant of the flowering stone.
VI
Underlying everything, buried in every cell:
DEATH APPARATUS…
Power, arrogance, authority over men
legitimized by the doctrinal ravings
of lunatics: deceits leading to
pollutions of the mind,
corruption of wills,
contaminations of the body,
oaths of allegiance coerced,
professions of faith coerced
on the frontiers of hysteria;
suspicion and distrust precipitating
the slow slide into madness.
Summoners of Primordial Shadow,
lurk in the Doorway of Syndromes,
robed in the Dark Pathology
of Endocrine Disruptors.
Carrying the star of the false prophet, they
incur the Fate of Desecrators upon us all.
They haunt the Shadow of God,
which is DEATH.
They dwell in the ECSTACY
of the all-consuming fire,
which has become my abode,
where I stumble headlong
onto descending paths
to fall in among the dead,
the weight of the soul held
against the weight of a feather;
there falling in among
things past and things lost,
to lay like a stone
with angelic music streaming in my head.
(Aniridia Redux)