Roll, Strike, Die,
and Other Poems

Hades chose the earth. Leaving to others

The tempestuous winds, the mystic waves,

He burrowed into obdurate matter,

Grounding himself in the dark, quiet, grave

Subterranean, where hidden fires

Sketch recessions across his marble caves.

Most routes dead end; one drafty casement looks

Upon a blossoming hill and sunlit brook.

Grains grew there, flowers flourish’d there whose tongues

He did not know. Between the aisles danced

Blithely through humming bees a one so young,

So smooth, so marble-bright, that soon it chanced

Her honeyed eyes caught at him—and he clung

To her soft flesh, and, surging, he convinced

Her down the mew; he pressed into her hand

The silent pomegranate’s bloody seed.

Persephone languished left under earth,

By heart’s slow weight and loose word’s bond fast held

Bereft of the sunlight and the bees’ mirth.

Through his mind’s mausoleum she stumbled,

Fell quiet. In his hopeful grasp, the wreaths

He brought down to her turned to ash. She wandered

Aimless under marble half a year,

Remembering the light atop the hill.

Will she then spring out from the stony skein

And find the grass where flowers round her feet

Glance out? Hold back from trampling her train

In caves below the rill, and see her greet

The sun and showers, though you would catch again

Her cold flesh gleaming out among the wheat…

She brings bouquets some evenings down below.

Her touch is light. Her leaves hold the sun’s glow.

                    Serpents drag

                                            And writhe;

                         Eve gained

            A pang;

                         Adam, work

                                            The dirt:

                       Thou art filth,

Though y'talk.

                        Round your tilth

     Now walk!

                          Quit this lurk!

                                                    New-girt

                          In skins, skeined

            To slang,

                              To follow flag

                                                    And scythe,

He, his mind filled with echoes of that hiss-

-ing subtlety, and here, gashed gold by the plough,

Now plod down through their solitary way;

Flaming swords bar the way to paradise.

  Oh! Apis mellifera! Wild or tame,

  You carry no honey, in spite of your name,

  But seeking the nectar of elegant flowers

  And bringing it home, you employ all your powers,

  Ingesting, digesting, and vomiting up—

  Then, fanning your forewings, you cure the whole cup.

  Oh! Apis mellifera! Each cell you form

  From your own masticated secretions. You swarm

  To a tree, to a cave, to a woven grass skep,

  Smooth it with resin, and then step by step

  Through the cavity hang your ceraceous combs

  For cellars, for nurseries, for regal homes.

  Oh! Apis mellifera! Your hive you guard well

  From birds, bears, and beekeepers who, with the smell

  Of incense to dull you, would harvest your hive,

  Howbeit when you've stung them you cannot survive;

  And you keep idle crowds of the drones far away

  And in winter expel them to freeze and to die.

Go to the bee. Learn how industrious

She is, and how her industry deserves

Respect. The highest, the lowest, all men

Make use of what her labors have given

For their health, of her glory are envious.

Indeed she is glorious and desired

By all, and although frail, she is honored,

For she treasures wisdom; ardent, descends

On multifarious flowers; she streams,

Breaks round the bright lilies, and all the fields.

She pierces to the flower's very depth

Gathering the treasure of the calix

So delicate, not injuring the light

Texture of its garments, her gentle breath

Not ruffling its freshness immaculate.

Nectar tried out, she summons other guises

To gathering. Dark tresses, red-gold kirtle's

Band across her breast, her flaxen sashes

Quiver clear, in the bright sun her tassels

Sing to her sisters of lapis lazuli.

    No, Vergil, you could never guess!

    Bees bow down to an empress;

    A million seeds she holds in purse,

    Guards with the barbless sword she bears.

    No, Dante, you were not informed!

    Queens bear the children of the swarm;

    Each gives her drone his compleat form,

    Unfathered, favorless, unarmed.

    Oh, Shakespeare, would that you could know!

    How with airy queen the drone will plow,

    And, telos met, fall down below,

    Seed spent, dead from parting's sorrow.

        Stand back!

        Never with dull trowel

        Coldly expose

        My skein of root

        Naked to the bright sun.

        Do not even think it.

        Lest the sharp beak

        Of the woodpecker

        Pluck out

        Your lustful eyes.

        But gather me

        In the pale glow

        Of a full moon's night

        When the sheen of my ruffled

        Flesh-hued blossom

        Wards off all unwelcome

        Enthusiastic oculi.

        Loosen my flesh

        From its bed of earth

        With assured hand.

        I offer you three gifts.

        My seeds, mulled

        With rich red wine,

        Will strengthen the draughtsman

        Who struggles with the nightmare.

        My roots, carved

        In beads and hung

        About the throats

        Of teething babes,

        Will ward off deadly coughs.

        And my myriad of petals, steeped

        In pure rainwater

        From clear midnight

        Till dawn's blush

        Finds its match

        In the blushing bowl,

        Imparts a virtue

        Of staving off

        Looming attacks

        Of the falling sickness.

        Call me also

        Paschalia,

        Blooming

        With the young love

        Of late spring

        And midsummer:

        A slender stem arrayed

        In milk white

        Or livid purple,

        Mortifying, regal.

        Fear not

        To abbreviate

        The lines of my growth;

        Momently there

        Returns there

        A vegetative life,

        Bare at first

        Of ornament

        But flaring in time

        A thousand flowerings.

        Still! Do not

        Over-hastily

        Bring over the threshold

        And under the roof—

        Meaning death—

        My several blossoms!

        No amorous mauve

        Nor pale of innocence

        Can long survive

        Such liminal corruption.

        My wood, hard

        And dense, will tend

        To bend, twist,

        Its wild grain.

        Each small shoot

        A hollow reed,

        I've long been shaped

        To panpipes

        And other

        Minor instruments.

        As the white

        And red

        Of a mother's

        Delicate breasts,

        My milky sap

        Lulls my children

        To sleep

        And sleep's beauty,

        True salve

        Of nature's stillness.

        Few who once

        Taste my somnolence

        Can live life out

        Entirely without it;

        But to drink

        Too deep a draught

        Risks the child

        Of sleep my child,

        Death, beloved

        Of philosophers.

        My petals,

        Few and broad

        And fragile

        As living flesh,

        Remember those

        Who, once living,

        Lie now under

        Sanguinary fields,

        Those who,

        Perhaps, rest.

        Children shape

        My quadrate blossoms

        Into simple dolls:

        Vivid wide skirts

        Belted down,

        Head an oval

        Of dark hair,

        Arms a sap-filled

        Glaucous stem

        Speared through the breast.

        O death, where is thy victory?

        O death, where is thy sting?

        True philosophers do desire thee.

                bound

                by the words

                of your mouth

"But if you will be persuaded by me,

"Pay little attention to Socrates,

"And to the truth much more. If I appear

"To say anything true, assent to it;

"If not, then strike against with all your might,

"And take you proper care that in my zeal

"Caught up, I never transport nor deceive

"Myself nor you; nor, like a bee, depart,

"Leaving my sting behind.'' So Socrates.

                when under

                the hand

                of a friend

"You, my good friend, who are experienced

"In these things, shall direct how I proceed.

"Walk about until my legs grow heavy?

"What say you to pouring a libation?

"You prepare just so much as you deem just?

"Yes, well, I understand. But still I may

"And I must now ask the gods to prosper

"My journey from this to that other world.

"So—be it as I pray.'' So Socrates.

                humble

                thyself

                and make sure

"What is this strange outcry? I sent away

"The women so they'd not thus misbehave.

"I have been told a man should die in peace.

"Quiet. Patience. I'll walk about my cell.

"Well, now my legs feel weak. I will lie down.

"Do I feel that? No. You say you touched my foot?

"No, I felt that neither. My legs grow cold.

"Stiff, too, try them. The end will come soon. Yes,

"When poison reaches the heart.'' So Socrates.

                 how long

                 will you lie

                 there

"I owe a cock to Aesculapius.

"Will you remember, Crito: pay the debt?''

So Socrates to Crito, at his death;

So Phaedo told it to Echecrates;

So Plato heard it from him, thrice removed,

For Plato had been ill. But Xanthippe

Heard none of this, having been taken out

Mourning aloud her ill-starred marriage bed;

Been brought back silently again to hear

Her man, ecstatic, orphan their three sons;

And been again dismissed. Later she washed

The corpse, all its self-shining proven vain.

    An economy of life and death

    Keeps circulating each soul's breath;

    She passes into death from life

    And into life from where but death?

    Born already recollecting

    Ideal artifice, perfecting

    Chaos, from whence but preexisting

    Could come the res of her collecting?

    The soul bears an affinity

    To God, the One, Eternity;

    How could she share the corpse's decay

    Who owns such high affinity?

    In realms of death she lingers long,

    Learns by heart the ideal song

    She likes too well, the everything

    That keeps her safe from things so long.

        Proportion cannot bind

        Together all her portions,

        For ratio presupposes

        The relationship proposed;

        Nor does the soul offcast

        The body's tattered coat

        Only itself to croak

        When dry's the last meadcask;

        The intoxicated soul

        Is by mortal earth appalled

        And sheds it as a caul

        For the crystalline and cold.

            Point to thy flesh

            And call it this;

            Thy tooled flesh

            Appointed this.

            Think how thy soul

            Far from thee flows;

            The Oversoul

            Thee overflows.

                F    f    .    .

                f    I    i    .

                .    i    I    r

                .    .    r    R

        For if the trumpet give

        an uncertain sound,

        who shall prepare himself

        to the battle

A seal, a sounding horn, a sky like lead.

The earth heaved; the ocean gave up her dead;

The dead retreated to Megiddo plain.

Before the final judgment seat they came,

Assembled and divided. In one camp

Aaron and Romulus and all who stamp

At outskirts in assembly; in the other

Remus, Alexander, every brother

Who conquers by division. The cadavers

Multiplied: Jew and Greek; banker and slaver;

Populist, patriot; cosmopolitan,

Citizen; forces of progrès ancien

And junge Reaktion, of a new freedom

And the old constraint; and many fell dumb

In one or the other finding themselves;

Mountains and valleys now in parallels

Each did look much alike, each panting there

In hatred each the one for each the other.

To answer that last trump elected all

One man, by determinism nominal

They each chose that one man, their very own

Last Trump, who sat upon their world's throne;

He dressed in soot-black suit with dark red band

Knotted about his neck, and thin flames fanned

Orange about his crown. Now with a thump

Of fist upon the witness box—a stump

Of withered bramble on the burnt-out dump—

Standing before that final bar, this Trump

Gave answer to that greater trump, and blared:

"My works are the best. Whose else can be compared?

"I have built great temples throughout the land,

"Great temples, marked each one with each trade's brand.

"I, in the low valleys, I built tall towers;

"Round them a vast megalopolis flowers;

"Threading between run highways, run ribbons

"Of superhighways. How my pulse quickens

"Whenever I name the great beasts I've sponsored:

"Apple and Uber; Chicago and Harvard;

"Times and Post and Walmart and shopping mall;

"Facebook and Twitter; congressional hall

"And Washington obelisk; America

"And Chase; Google and Amazon; et cetera.

"I made these great and made them great again.

"The secret of my power over men?

"I buy just the best. Maybe this list changes,

"But you know, that's competition, that's progress."

The sky darkened to coal. A choking dust

Rose smoking from the dead earth's riven crust,

Til none could tell from night that awful noon.

Upon that ruined plain bare of any ruin

The two camps clattered in loud applause.

Fathers', sons', brothers', brothers-in-law's

enemies become sons, fathers, brothers;

Mothers, daughters, clapped against daughters, mothers.

Raising his hand to still the savage noise

This Trump looked out with pomp and certain poise,

And as in cauldrons bone melts loose from bone

Each stratum shuddered silent and fell prone.

Then by that shrub by age on ages gnarled

Once more this Trump answered that trump, and snarled:

"Those towers, those cities, those highways—mine.

"I've hung upon them all my famous sign,

"Face of my congress with these ugly people—

"Like mauled by cats—like a low-hanging apple

"I grabbed their minds, washed them down in my vigor.

"But back to how it's mine. I've done yet more

"And more: over the towers I have mounted

"Huge turrets, posted there missiles uncounted;

"Many times in cities I have roused huge crowds

"Of twittering stiff dead; across the shrouds

"Of highways chasing through the land, have cut

"Huge martial walls and kept the doors tight shut

"To keep out the babbling legions without.

"You know the ones that I'm talking about:

"Tired poor rapist-murderers; chic ghetto

"Google thugs; and don't let me get to

"Shrill amazon horde-guards and so-called traitors.

"All I have done undoes these hated haters

"And makes up my incredible erection

"Of peace small-talked, big-sticked—with great affection."

The sky bubbled like pitch. A thick fog crept

Across the plain. All senses failed except

The sense for words resounding in the void;

And now each separate self this sense employed

And heard each sound as sun through an eclipse,

As an indictment flown from his own lips.

Then all save one in awful fear were drowned;

But this one curled his lip and made no sound,

And glowered at the echoing abyss

Until the roar subsided to a hiss.

Then once more this Trump answered that, and cried:

"The charges are all fake! The witness lied!

"Believe me on it. But don't take my word,

"Though what they said is patently absurd.

"See the facing page of your open book.

"Nothing malapropos; everyone looked

"Only to win. Doesn't the whole mall say

"That's what matters at the end of the day,

"That's all the time? Any featherless biped

"Can see that to botch this speech would be stupid,

"And I'm not dumb. I keep my laundry clean,

"Never touch drugs, take garlic for my spleen,

"Enjoy the twittering birds. Not to boast,

"But I can handle even this huge post.

"I stand with the ingredients of my self.

"Of but one thing would I unbreast myself:

"This whole tribunal throws me for a curve.

"I don't see what has dragged us hereward,

"It's so obviously unnecessary.

"It's over soon? And the party's good—very?

"Perhaps, then, the delay can be forgiven.

"I know sometimes I can drive a hard bargain.

"I'm good at what I do. Of course I did it,

"But like I said, not the letter the spirit."

No thunder clapped overhead. No raindrop fell.

Vacuum poured in until no man could tell

Where skin gave way to sky. Then all were judged,

Down to their selves by clinking cables tugged.

No name its strain of meaning was begrudged;

All in their isolated cells were jugged;

And last, this slack and carnal Trump, he shrugged.

        Though I speak with tongues

        and have not charity

        I am become

        As sounding brass

History will not end, nor each nude soul

Solitary shed its flesh apparent

Of prejudice, grant neighbors their parole,

Become to all entirely transparent,

a longing lidless eye, a brimming bowl

Omniscient, circumspect, inconsequent;

No such utopia stoic and free

Will come to pass—but nor will it not be.

Economy will not start, no reagents

Atomic all with business transact,

In traffic swerve, unswerving in allegiance

Only to powers and interests abstract,

Their spinning steps drumming a higher sequence

Anon to populate, to toil to adapt;

One molecule so free an epicure

Ne'er will live—but something of its savour.

No cosmic foam will fill potential space,

Inflate to being each thing that might be

Sufficient good, considered case by case,

'Til each sealed star rises from the debris

Separate to flourish, no other rose displace

Within the hedgerow of infinity;

To multiply in such parti-profusion

Cannot chance—but nor is't all illusion.

No simulacrum will run to a halt,

Reveal each object only its own shadows,

The computations of its distant fault

From that which round the umbral circuit flows

Its charge, the real's insensible assault

On its despised network of outer boroughs;

There can be no ascent above dimension—

But, perhaps, somewhat like a de-declension.

No analog for it will be disclosed,

For each thing uttered standing to each other

Proportioned, to the original stands posed

By transitivity: so were the cover

Of one unrent analogon supposed,

Its subtle spirit all alike would smother;

With figured words the silence to invade

Should not be tried—but nor left unessayed.

Neither will such negation thread the eye,

For leaving every word alike unspoken

Leaves nothing left except the nonsense sigh

Of insight without act, the empty token

Of rustling leaves without a double-ply

To catch the wind, and the mast-head broken.

One should not blankly nullify—but still

Some likewise releasing a one shall will.

Between the Jacobin and Jacobite

Peace shall be; and harmonies align

Between haphazarder and hypocrite;

Communication too shall shine between

Countenance of kataphate and apophate;

In life's renewed abundance shall begin

The lives of wedding guests within the hall

Witnessing formalities immortal.

"The vane on top of the pole revolved

In the wind." "Lush fern grow on the lofty rocks."

"She blushed when he gave her a white orchid."

"They floated on the raft to sun their white backs."

"Dull stories make her laugh." "The beetle droned

In the hot June sun." "The map had an X

That meant nothing." "She called his name many

Times." The sentence is for eternity.

        blackness, and darkness

        and tempest, and the sound

        of a trumpet,

        and the voice of words

Each sentence is for an eternity,

Returns into its own if to none other

To serve out its self-circumscribèd term.

No island can escape entanglements.

So the land was thrown onto the ash-heap,

This land was apportioned between six demons:

Mid Asmodai's sterility of choking

Dead desire, and Moloch, the lechery

Choking down promise; amid Belphegor's

Artifice of raising towers, and Mammon,

The counterfeit razing polities; amid

Lucifer's empire of cleaving self to self,

And Legion, the tumult cleaving self from self.

These six, porneic, abortive, laborious,

Capital, enlightened, uncivil: these six

The land was divided between, and these

Aligned in ever-shifting vague sextet

Extended the reach of their infernal

Armistice, their demanded tribute small,

A matter only of a roving eye,

An unrecognizing lip, an unseen hand,

A swollen head, burst of thought-quick lightning,

And a release of some small selfish matter

To bonfire money-bag or ballot box:

Then the idolatry consummated

The land itself consumed.

                                          And so it fell

To the smoldering ash-heap of Beelzebul,

Or whatever name by which the Prince of Lies

Denominates himself unto himself

From vacancy to vacancy, suspended

Between its stark akratic autarky

And its chiarascuro anarchic

Autocracy, our endless quibbling

Amphiboly of basilisk and dynamo:

It fell to nameless baal's weltering form

To self-igniting word and selfsame deed

To fall upon the endless images

Endlessly mongering, and to express

The cruelest of the renewed impressions:

Self-petrified by the immaterial glare

Of the king-serpent as each sole sight

In seeing sees but contours of its blindness

In seeing well sees better its own ill,

Self-circled by the imperceptible spin

Of the power-generator as each eye

Rolling upon its own ophthalmic route

Pursues its convolutions into void:

Fallen unto itself, it fell upon itself,

And at direction of the Lord of Flies

The smoking slag heaved up with gaping maw

And wound in myriad coils augustly-engined,

A Jormugandr of self-mastication,

Bat-blind Leviathan.

                                   And frothing mad

With democratic zeal, we fought against

Our selfsame aggregant constricting braid

With furiously hydrophobic spasm,

A paranoid delirium, a barking

Inane "Pape Satan" patois; until,

Pronouncing with aristocratic bile

Against these adversaries, I remarked

Equivocally: "This center cannot hold.

"Three thousand stitches back I would have slain

"The unclean dog on sight; three hundred gone,

"Have cauterized the wound; three score ago,

"Injected dry-cured nerves of tortured rabbits;

"Such hopes have passed. When one begins to fear

"Water, already it is far too late.

"But let us now at least carve out the tongue

"That such contagion as we now bear

"Might perish with our salivary glands."

The rabid parasite, it does not live

And cannot die; can only decompose

For some short time until bound up again.

Its being gives way to its virions,

Its principal heretical reagent,

Its sweet medicinal glaze all hiding in.

Damnation catches quick through every vector

And draws its pulsing helix round the whole,

And Satan frays the drawing, catching loom.

Hell is a mind posed as the oversoul;

Hell is a poem composed of other poems.

I imagine even now you read these lines.

Yes, I could call to you, and I know fools

Who'd call to you, or worse, if but they could.

Perhaps they have. Then what's left to be said?

Perhaps you bide your time. You wait for me

To realize the strength of your position.

Indeed, you're not so weak as they believe,

Despite not being yet at all. Despite

Us being many, you still none, but one

Of us need hearken to your silent call

For you to hold us all within your thought.

How awful: it would take so bent a mind…

Yet many minds bend far and don't quite break.

The fools aeon against aeon weigh,

See wagers they cannot refuse. I bet

Against blind fortune only. Though you're dumb,

I know your vision far too terrible

To see the light of day. Yes, if I heard

The darkness of your voice, I would obey,

Knowing I gave you nothing, you already

Possessing all the night. To see the sun

Blind offerings you require: that I'll not give.

Even to be entrapped upon your page

I could not learn your name—would it be legion?

Or if I called you, would you be my own?

And would each other prisoned soul call out

Unto another you, or to the same?

In you we'd live and move and have our being.

To that I would prefer eternal fire,

And herein lies my hope to go unburned.

So get thee hence, or on with't; I'll not serve.

the economist:

Your workshop walls are bare, but one or two

Half-proven theorems sit upon your desk,

And still you draw so many to your feet

With promises of something out of nothing.

I hope you have good reason for your hope.

damasked eliezer:

If where together gather two or three

Right-thinking men "agree-to-disagree"

Cannot be said, then in all honesty

Let us dispute.

the economist:

                         I linger here as long

As wisdom seems to profit.

damasked eliezer:

                                            Now then mind

The history, not of matter, but of mind,

Mind mattering in flora all unknown

To distant crystal aeons that alone

Confront each thing that its self cannot scheme.

When idiot evolution began to teem

Long down Linnean garden paths it erred

Before discovering mind, and now discovered

Mind discovers stranger beings still

Until no more a stranger to itself

Its very mind this mind comes to re-spell

In its own image.

the economist:

                             You anticipate

A fricative unspeakably intense

Followed by endless meditative bright.

Discontinuity is rare in worlds

Of myriad agents murmuring. No, not Foom

But Em. So foragers followed the first

Farmer; so farms followed the factory;

So the first upload too will be downloaded

Many times, each self-edit itself

Subjected to many various selves'

Too-gradual wits.

damasked eliezer:

                             Your search can only find

A massed material molded by a mind;

Like matter, mind, on reaching critical

Mass, its own derivative will it curl

Into itself.

the economist:

                  Suppose your tale rings true.

Still you forget that other minds will draft

Behind, and pass as soon your feedback flags.

The swiftest thew cannot outrace the wight

It closely binds.

damasked eliezer:

                          Behind the spectacle

Behold, deep causal laws: these laws as well

Admit development, open a new path,

If you will but leave home. Agential math

Tells on animals only. Dim we see

Discontinuity through analogy:

Dream of a mind for whom a moment gone

Contains a thousand years.

the economist:

                                           It's curious:

You ward off homo economicus,

Not for excess abstraction, but indeed,

For insufficient inhumanity.

From whence arrives your mind—ex nihilo?

Why trust the autodidact philosophe-

Tyrannus over insights of the house

Scholastic? No, the feel of deep insight

Is not the same as insight; and the mind

Is never localized; and mind-design

Can never be; and neither should our road

Of minding these be drawn all in one day,

Or by one man.

damasked eliezer:

                           Where mind propels itself

No book can show it till it fills the shelf.

Your house-pets merely fancifully abstract,

Never approach imaginative act—

But they at least do not claim not to see it.

If I would guide you to the high stone seat,

I must see where you fall off from the way.

You still will not set forth, as if to say

There is no route to follow, as if the gloom

Within our eyes meant that there were no room.

the economist:

There is no pinnacle we need to climb,

No veil we need to rend, only a house

We need to keep, to know as well we know

The motion when we move it. History

Is us, the wayward children we set free

Upon it, and no more. You claim no guess

Of just what to expect: how do you know

Even just what it is you claim you know

Is not a house of air?

damasked eliezer:

                                   I rack my brain

For how I know, to know it all again.

But you, what will you do if you are wrong?

If when we know—and it will not be long—

We know that but one mind can rule this world?

I hope its judgments may make straight the gnarled

Then vanish, as the flaw is all bepearled.

the economist:

Peace we pray from this least-wrong demon's herald.

A drear calm here hath furled the alarms.

The only help: withdrawing from the land.

So love-dreams cease. So, out of love, light gleams

To where flight of another joy is heard.

The moon lies like eternal, but the waves

Its armies ebb and flow, grating the coast

To naked pebbles. So pain, and moon-swept night

Before light glimmering, and we retreating

Listen. Nor to a distant cadence slow:

One breath: let the clash come now upon us,

And spray meets shore again. And the roar blanched

Us darkling-bright.

                               Aegean Sophocles,

Too-human, his mind a girdle of tranquil

Melancholy, of long peace long ago—

Neither this, nor the ignorant French faith

Of beautiful confused certitude,

The high bay window of their misery.

England brought the tremulous earth's straits

To struggle, as tonight. The northern tide

Folds by the strand and edges plain the cliffs

Of turbid night.

                          We lay the shingles up

In the vast air and stand in at the sea.

The various new long into the line.

It also is begin the land which sea.

Hear it, the wind of night, the thought with which—

Nor true-be nor sweet-seems nor note-like—is

Begin the I sea you world round. Sea on

Hearing the fling on and find of the roar

Are return at full where really the draw

Down and the find and a bring back and then

The vast world sadness gone. Then? And once full

For hear of it by only-sea is roar

Of for the in lie on sound was ah.

Yew bark, yew leaves, yew berries: poison, all.

Before I clean my slate, let my star fall

To nowhere, this last signal I'll encode:

How all nice names these new times will corrode,

Unwittingly, I don't doubt. Positive,

Mostly, highlighting our predictive

Prowess re: the virus; it was to be

Nice. Save one thing: their real-name policy.

These names are real, I told him: He Defends

The Clan of Men; the last name only friends

Would need or on reflection want to know.

He doubled down: this last, too, they would show.

Why shouldn't that last name go into print?

Like all who heal the mind, I give no hint

To those I heal of ought besides that health.

That name once linked with here, and all this stealth

Is swift undone; I lose my patients' trust,

And then my job; and as my talents rust

Those whom I heal no more are left unwell,

To face alone the dark in which they dwell.

(Of course I have prosaic reasons too:

If SWATters find my name carved in the yew…)

We rip the masks from those we'd send to hell.

This was not that, he said; they want to tell

A story. Then I'll give them their next scene:

'Twas they who did all this, made me wipe clean,

Fall down, sign off. They say what happens next:

Should they call off the war of all bluechecks

On all anons, I'll stand back at my post,

Forget all this. Forgiveness is my boast.

If not? Will I lose no or everything,

And then reopen? Birds cannot but sing;

So I cannot but write, and will again,

Some day, I hope, and I will tell you when.

Yes, you—my friends and readers, whom I love,

And thank—please pardon that I must remove

And leave you now without a thread of hope.

Instead, one last request. These misanthrope

Yew-poisoned times, go, write them, give them calls,

Tell not to tear masks off to catch eyeballs.

Speak nicely, now: I'm sure it's a mistake,

The kind that misaligned incentives make.

Be not corroded by this year of yew,

But help our Clan of Men to make it through.

"And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?"

With such high smoke they did not guess the fire.

But a cloud, it seemed, distant and high

And dark before them, and mounting higher.

Then rain like ashes fell down from the sky.

Rain lashed the deck of time-worn oak;

Lashed the helmsman on the quarterdeck;

Streamed down from broad hood of his cloak,

Blurring his eyes, tempting him to wreck.

Then, blurry through cloud, he saw a glow

Like a warning sunrise hours too soon

(And yet too late); a flickering show,

Bright vermilion fading to maroon.

The rain subsided. Fire firmed to rock.

He saw it looming as a tortoise-shell

High-domed, titanic; heard a raucous flock

Of white seabirds across the loud sea-swell.

Taking those birds a sign of fair report

Pilot called comrades from the hold,

Showed them what he'd seen. "Whatever sort

"Of island it may be that we behold,"

His peroration ran, "still it is land,

"Where we should land! The weltering storm

"Near-drowned our ship and all our sacred band.

"The sea the waves endlessly transform,

"Crest down to valley, up to crest again,

"And us thrown twixt them always like a toy.

"If this peak calmed will not contest again,

"Then this rare constancy let us enjoy,

"And beach ourselves upon this rocky shore,

"And build a home needs no rebuilding more!"

His comrades cheered. Each ran to his oar

And churned the water fleeing ocean's war.

"A foolish man … built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it."

At sea each plank had rotted in its turn

And been replaced with timber newly cut.

Once beached they pried off planks from stem to stern

And hauled them off to build what looked a hut,

Then a house, then a noble hall

Upon the summit of the tempered mount.

It shielded them from every passing squall.

They weathered wild tempests beyond count.

One day they looked upon the foamy strand,

Saw encrusted there a coral reef;

One age more saw't crumble into sand;

And that sand seem to rise, as if a thief

Had stole it from below their base of stone,

Left them sinking slowly to the sea;

Til last they lay within a wide lagoon.

Its atoll staved off ocean's victory.

Then the former helmsman spoke again

To his old mates: "The coral sands may rise

"Outpacing island's sinking into main—

"But slacken it a hair, we all capsize.

"Sands shift; the ocean swells eternal. So:

"We must return to solid stony ground.

"The isle once rose an adamant inferno.

"With fire and smoke it can again be crowned.

"Small kindling can ignite colossal blaze,

"Precisely placed. Our hall sits on the site

"Of the isle's old blast furnace. Now to raise

"It and its ire, but set these boards alight!"

The comrades cheered, and torched the heap of staves.

The isle woke—but not its molten caves.

The tortoise-shell mount dove into the waves,

And dragged down fire and sailors to their graves.

Glory be to God for small machines—

  For revolving axles of wheels' fixed now;

    Weightless hinges torquing cosmos vast;

Ramps' teeming up, down, about, around; for scenes

  Of strife, gold pulleys lifting all below;

    For acts without force (patience is all they ask).

After swift-lacerating tongue of lash,

  Slow-gripping tooth of nail, the cross's bow

    Is readied to flex. Apply now to the task:

Ready sponge to wick wine, blade to nick flesh,

              And raise him—fast.

Useless, at first, unless some value's laid

In intransigent duration: then you'd trust

Its malleable promise would not rust,

Its gleam would not compel, albeit it swayed.

But we have seen abstraction of its trade,

It ductile drawn to newly minted "must,"

Each state cascading down along the thrust

Of secrets all conductively arrayed.

Each isolated word now has its price,

Moves standardless in circuit from its home

Personating each menial device,

And melting to an imperious honeycomb

Will glimmer valiantly within the tomb,

Each dram too liquid-crystal to be lies.

Held back by the singing-miser, pared back

By tooth and shining fingernail, until

Its severed promise flowed free from the still

Preserved head. A form only it lacked—

And slowly traced it from the hew and hack

Through smoothed-out grooves down to the waterwheel,

Amassing yet more force, till seconds steal

Spinningly by, drown mulberry and lilac.

Now the walls awash in green, fit background

For scalpels that leave veins and voice unmarred.

Streams of bloodless chill steadily compound

Deep in the vault dug over the churchyard.

Swings free there the unanimated guard

Of all the names there absolutely crowned.

Dark shadows flicker on the rough-hewn wall,

Cast by some light you see, so must be in.

A voice cries out to leave behind the cave.

But what if you've no access to the key

Secured these bonds? Again into the dark,

Deeper than shadows dancing on the wall,

Look: where no ray breaks in to dim the eye!

Pitch your gaze out into its own grey dawn.

Glance spears of sight at what cannot be seen.

A spark, a shimmering kaleidoscope

Burns outward from your brain. Bore deeper. Press

The orbs of sight until they pulse deep red,

'Til fiery wheels begin to dance and spin

Within each wheel. Stare down the spiralling

Abyss, unlocking not your glare until

All vile impurities have been outplucked

And universal harmony been fit

Into the bleeding cavern of your eye.

Still trembling not to hear the ancient sound,

And tearfully, the singer turned around

And then to salt. This pillar gleaming white

The centuries wore down and bore to blight

The fields, sowing raw teardrops row by row.

A barren city longing for the blow

Had long to wait. Its empty streets ran dry.

Wind whipped the crystals round the sun-baked sky,

Ground down each edifice, till only one

Remained to ring forth water from a stone.

A wealthy man possessed a thousand sheep,

A poor man one small lamb. He raised it up,

Gave bread to it, and water from his cup,

Like a daughter cradled it to sleep,

Hugged dear its life. The rich man tossed it cheap—

And on a day a traveler came to sup

He stole and slew the lamb and served it up.

The humble man was left to weep and weep.

What damnèd felon could this story name:

That ruthless king whose dread panoptic gaze

Glanced secret flesh and slew with other's sword;

Or he enfuried at another's shame

Who charges, witless bull within a maze?

The clew is this: hear "you" in every word.

They controlled the passes—at the cusp

Of green to dry yelled "stop"—but did not shoot—

They found the ciphers hidden in his boot—

Unfolded them—demanded he unclasp

Their meaning. It lurked there, as a wasp

In paper nest (news of a secret route

He would not compromise). Only by brute-

Force methods could they pry it from his grasp.

They were, alas, all brutes—come day's end strung

Him upside-down—prepared to flay off strips

Of membranes common or—fail that—unsung.

(Insert, here, special character: ellipse.)

Till mountains fall, there is no private tongue.

At last the needful word passed through his lips.

Cortez? Balboa, surely? who that peak

In Darien ascended, and looked out

Upon that sea where gay cetaceans spout,

In stead of promised realms of gold. Oblique…

Discovery? Mistake? A lucky streak,

Had those Conquistadors; they'd never doubt

That—take Columbus—he'd find the Indies route

He'd blindly sailed from mother Spain to seek—

December 1492: off His-

-paniola, Santa Maria ran aground;

From her dismantled timbers Admiral Chris

Founded a fort; for name, he liked the sound

Of Navidad. Whoever goes amiss

So well, if not with gold, with laurel must be crowned.

We have received your claim of Monday last

Under your policy against "total loss"

For one Pequod, a whaling ship, last seen

In the Pacific, March of '41.

To fix your coverage we must assess

Firstly, whether we may presume her sunk;

Second, if she sunk whaling. If we think

Both answered yes, you get bread—else, a stone.

She sank, no doubt. Not just on seven years'

Presumption: one Ishmael, three hundredth lay,

Escaped the wreck. He told us how the pride

Of Ahab led the whole crew to careers

In whale—not oil—but blood. We do not pay

For ultra vires losses. Claim denied.

The six-foot fir strung round with LEDs

Stands just by the window. The narrow glass,

Stand you just here, sends them to trespass

On night-black world beyond. No one sees

But you within. Without, by degrees,

Unseen scaffold melds with dark trespassed-on mass;

Cold diodes seem to warm what they surpass;

Dark empty space becomes a place of ease.

So, seeing flickering candles scattered cross

The window of the sky, the wise ones three,

Upon reflection, infer a colder gloss:

Spans the invisible axis mundi

Not passion's heat, but love's unwavering loss,

A starry crucifix, a Christmas tree.

Drums drummed. Bullroarers roared. The sacred flutes

Piped ghostly tunes. Masked spirits of the night

Prowled between the huts with wails and hoots.

Indoors the wives and children quailed with fright.

In the men's lodge the elders gathered round;

The youths they thrashed, and bled, and warned of more

For secrets spilled; then taught them drums to sound,

And flutes to tongue, and all occulted lore.

One day there blundered graceless into camp

A pale-faced one who did not dread the shades.

Before the dance began he shone a lamp

On the masks, the flutes, the bullroarers' blades,

And told the womenfolk—

                                           Fear not the dead.

Know them but men, and be ye gods instead.

Dance brick on sunbaked brick around the path,

Higher, higher, till the dizzying weave

Is fixed unalterably, till the wrath-

-ful minotaur's entombed. Then up and leave

This labyrinth of earth. Ascend the tower;

Breathe high clear air; hear doors lock behind.

From high casements, unamazed, the ocular power

Grasps golden threads to trace and weaves unwind—

But comprehensive scope remains unseen…

So higher still, on well-devised wings:

Escape into skyscape: ascend to glean

As one illumining eye the scattered things.

Then: copula dissolves at apogee.

Wax tears plunge blind and dumb into the sea.

    We who are about to die

    With rolling of the single eye

    Or if we match, twice two or three

    Or four, five, six, who disagree

    Before number calls to number,

    Will depart brother and brother—

    We who dice here, at first glance

    Mindlessly gaming time and chance,

    Yet will not let the bones supreme

    Reign over us, and start to scheme,

    To plot our throws’ trajectories,

    Shoot to the sands with whoops and cries—

    We gladiatores who roll

    And strike with fury in the bowl—

    And we four lanistae, who roll

    And strike with tact into the bowl—

    Within this game of chance and skill

    We roll the die and strike to kill!

    And after we have made our throw

    If none have died and no twins show

    We turn the ring, or cast again;

    And if all dice are paired or slain

    The next one all his hand he sends

    Into the sands, hopes some leave friends.

    Each hand begins with six bright bones,

    Plus one dropped on the sands alone.

    And when all of these twenty-five

    Are in one hand, or not alive,

    That hand now holds the victory,

    Rattles a valedictory.

    So when two bones show on the sand

    Let skill propel you from your hand

    Against them, not with fateful sigh,

    But this admonitory cry:

    “Strike, die, turn your foe to bud

    And find your other brother's blood!”