Parnassus rises on the edge of the underworld.
Sleep, the sleep has shifted. Under skin-silk nets and Artex arches,
Between Beijing sheets and sweated bedding,
Bound by stitches itched by infant fingers, entombed in branded beds
And turned on spits of wanton will, – the sleep has shifted.
Those stars we never before observed have seared the ceiling
And scorched the skull; the lacrimal sac releases a rolling boil.
On the horizon, the end amasses;
Parnassus rises on the edge of the underworld.
Sometimes at sunrise, if waiting all night
For exuberant beauty to refurbish the wheat fields,
I may scratch my old beard and consider the grey paths,
The querulous steeps, the mysteriously disappearing relics,
Those leering creatures that creep along the craggy peaks
And banshee-screech at the black holes and spearing meteors
And meat-hooks of cannibal fingers, until a sacred space is cleared
In the maelstrom of colliding minds.
A worm-hole for coming worlds I summon.
Often in autumn, after blackberries are picked and onions pickled,
I may sit on the balcony, cracked feet appeased
In an alabaster bowl of kind cathartic water,
And trace the contours of soft, mossy rocks
Where jackboots slipped down treacherous rifts,
While naked soles tread with the ease of jinn.
It is a now-and-then luxury, this veneration, this ease;
There are still things to do before spears leaf.
Parnassus rises on the edge of the underworld.
When they emerged from the shadows at the Plaza de Cibeles
And marched to Puerto Del Sol in daylight, staggering dinosaurs
In mid-street extinction, the trumpet was sounded
From Manhattan to Melbourne. No one expected
The ground to cleave, the caves to howl so candidly.
This blare, this blast, this vaulting bawl
The mastodons took as time, bowed out
And bent their titan boughs to dust. The pterodactyls
Tilted their sceptic bills and beaded avenues,
Measuring the menace from skyscraper stalagmites,
Astride abandoned halls and tips of empty turrets.
The birth of a new species is not tolerated
By the lords of the old earth.
Beside rooftop pools, the lizard-hipped brokers
And stiff-tailed hand-snatchers flicked remotes
Until their talons cracked, switched batteries
And pressed control – control – control,
Recharged the light brigade and sent ultrasonic tones
To the telescreens, disbelieving primal eyespots.
And still the bellows roar, the butterfly rebounds
From shore to shore, continent to outpouring continent.
Parnassus rises on the edge of the underworld.
Tonight, as on most nights, the stars have risen to greet.
Now that time is on my side, I have grown to know their fickle ways,
And they know me and mine. The wine is good,
Though not as sweet as last year’s vintage, nor I suspect
As sour as next. Yet, it is a fine thing
To ferment a fountain of contentment,
While leopards recline in Dionysian ivy
And Silenus sucks figs in the shade.
The land undulates like the curve of a ripe thigh;
The wheat fields are golden with the final glance of the setting sun.
I raise a grail to all these things and wait;
Constellations shall guide into the night.
The ascent is lighted with subtle sounds -
Be still and listen.
Parnassus rises on the edge of the underworld.