Miscellaneous Historical Poems in Free Verse

While out of period in form, these have subjects which might interest the anachronist.
Translation: I liked them so much that I couldn't resist putting them up.

Heloise (February 1992)

In the chapel, falling to one's knees,
one is prone to visions:
visions of angels, of the empyreal layers
of heaven, of the face of one's God:
and the face of love.
A single tail-feather from the Holy Dove
is my relic, that I pray before.
Praying for visions. O Venus
have mercy on me!

for it is his face I see
at matins, at compline,
at every calling to prayer -
and at vespers, especially at vespers,
dusk is the cruellest time of all -
this vision of eternal love;

unreachable, untouchable,
beautiful beyond compare
is the face of my lord -

My God -

Teacher, friend, husband.
It seems only yesterday
that we last made love:
in the secret of the chapel,
the holy chants of the sisters
echoing from the cloister,
only our father witnessing
the consummation.
Holy Sacrament it was. The body of my lord,
the outpouring of my lord,
shed for love's sake
in secret marriage, sacred secret bonds
of holy wedlock.

My God. I had his son.
Astrolabe. The device used
to measure Heaven's distance.

And now he is gone. I, poor sinner,
can only see his face
in tormented visions -
would that he could be resurrected!
I long for the life after death that is to come,
eternal love, eternal life,
whether it be in the heaven
of his sweet speech,
or the fires of his passion...
it will all be the same.
For what is Hell,
but to be separated from one's Lord?
Am I not in hell suffering now?
Surely when I am called
all my sins will be purged,
forgiven; forgotten.

Sic et non, he asked me. And I responded
Yes. Yes, I will follow you.
Through the gates. I will follow you forever.
Even into Hell.

And no, manless, wed to one
who unmanned himself when his manhood was lost,
I have only the face of the Divine
to console me. Bride of Christ!
Where is my faithless lover?

Even his name, I mouth in prayer -
Abelard. A strange prayer
in this chapel, where all prayers
are mumbled in Latin
for an unknown God;
but I, who am chaste as Mary,
have had visions of my saviour,
one who will come when my existence is finished
and will carry me, at last, to safety.
Abelard, I pray. O come
and have mercy on me.

Amor Alchemica (May 1992) (alchemists might find this downright pornographic)

Deep in the stone heart of the forge,
fire leaps a dance to caress the sky.
A breath from the bellows
is the roar of the dragon.
Phoenix rises. Deep in the heart of my brother’s eyes
fire leaps a dance, to brush the back
of the spheres.

Phoenix rises, and dances at the third gate.
Cymbals; and the sulphurous smell of sweat.
Deep in the heart of his eyes
my brother’s dross is turned to gold;
veiled behind Ishtar’s gauze are his mysteries,
but I have pierced beyond. A breath from the bellows.
Phoenix rises, and my brother seeks the fire.
The veil is pierced; the philosopher’s stone is found,
and the third gate is breached.

The phoenix rises to dance
the music of the spheres. Deep in the heart
of the flames, the planets are still.
A breath from the bellows. The roar of the dragon
is my brother transformed
in phoenix flight. The veil is pierced.
We two are one
in the embrace of the gods.

Edda (Spring, 1992 sometime?)

I. The Voyage

Here at the northern beginning
of the world serpent,
the waters are clear cold silver,
the sun glints gold
on silver. Here the waves under your ship
are the rough-heaving shoulders of warriors;
gold on silver engraved in armour.
A conquest, cattle and gold and women
and bronze torques, to bring home to the wife
who waits for you, here;
hoe in hand, hair gleaming gold
against silver.

II. Yggdrasil (the serpent under the waters)

The waves throwing themselves at the shore
raking the shore with long wailing fingernails
that stream in moon-darkness.
And in the maiden moon
the shore consents,
gives in, the shore gives up its sands
to the night-vaulted sea.

These are the shores of night;
on this dream sea,
no means yes, hold is a cry of terror,
the mouth mouths
a prayer against twilight.

III. Odin's Hall

I have wandered Midgard
hero-like for so many years now,
so long that the leaves' frost
fallen no longer speaks of light's end,
merely of winter, of the gathering-in
before storms. The cry of ravens
in a weird tongue,
flight of thought and memory
against empty sky -
faugh! how this mead is sour
on my tongue! I long for the well
of my home, the clear-honey
wine, the warmth of my hearth,
the welcome of my own beloved
in my own bed. I have been here
too long. When will the horns call for me,
rainbow-trumpeting?

Eros and Thanatos At The Juncture of Lovemaking (April or May 1992)

for M.

Pictures curl together a locket,
strands of soul untouched by sun;
each to each, held warm to the breastbone, each one.

You in Babylonian sky, hot midafternoon;
you, hurrying to your temple
laden with tablets: grain reports,
taxes, tallies of household slaves.
I crashed into you, aflutter with my perfumed duties;
cuneiform spilled onto the stones
and scurried away in a swarm of wedge-shaped ants.
The blessings of Inanna, I murmured
and then the flood washed us both away
like so much silt from the Tigris

(Had I only known you then)

I would have danced my scarves in the temple moonlight

You in ritual mask, eyes hidden behind goddess;
knowing that the lot has been drawn,
even your daughter, firstborn -
did I protest the sacrifice, my love,
gazing at you with questioning cateyes
to make your needs upset the sacred scales?
I did not. I bowed low, forehead to the ground
that was your goddess feet, and rose
to climb the hill of lava
and sacred death

(Had I only held you then)

We would have commanded the sun to still

In moonlight hot as fire,
an alpine chill breathing jealous cold
at our castle walls;
you are drunk enough to halt in your ghost tale
to slosh against my wife's ear -
I did not challenge you to duel, then;
at least not in earnest. Or to the death.
But I partook of wine and incense
and swore brotherhood by ancient rite -
and the incense smoke curled curls
giving birth to phantoms made of moon, Alby,
to contracts signed in much essence

(Had I not drowned in your seas)

A prodigious poem we would have made, in Attic Greek

The jungle wavers, hot with blood
darkness of sunlight
lust. And your youth in quiltwork,
my friend, all thread embroidery spilling
out of the basket, onto the yellow silk
red of the Asian soil:
your tapestry cried to be unwoven:
How could I refuse Atropos, to hold you yet to me?
Thus I swallowed my jealousy of the shadow lover
and stood in her place, again,
sending you that time to her arms
knowing the whore would have me next.
And I stared scrying into your entrails' weavings,
seeing your soul fly west
on the back of the bird

(Had we not stopped for death)

We would have damned ourselves for eternity some more

You are soul in weavings still,
a cord that braids itself in my hand
to become a Kundalini serpent, unknowing.
Night sky and hot fire from the candles
witness our sacred marriage
our rite of rebirth, our re-remembering
in these bodies warm and masked in love's
bare bones encased in flesh.
Your arms holding me phoenix
in the heart of the hierogram;

Soul strands, links of fire,
passion the outstretched arms of death -
and from your embrace, Mystic Sister,
I draw forth my breath:

I would pray to my muse to teach a scythe to sing

Orphic Hymn (December, 1994 or January, 1995)

Three silver notes, moonlit agony,
falling tears from the lyre. The gravid moon.
The earth stands still, hush of pain,
long silenced in black reaches
of tumulus mound. Still stands the moon,
Orpheus knocking at the gate; and then
great mighty howl! hell awaits him.

No flowers are scattered this time,
no chariot receives him,
he walks into inner reaches
helixing. His feet are too slow.
And the road is marked with blood:
he is heavy, heavy, lead and gold
where he steps but for his tears,
soft falling rain, he belongs here in this earth,
he is of earth. The spirits pass,
they marvel at his chthonic glow
his gentian torch.

They hear a cry from beyond,
strange music, from where can it come?
It goads them. He is alone when he reaches
the boat. He has no coin, no soul.
His soul has already been paid -

so the ferryman shakes his head:
the last ferry has already been made,
and besides that, Master Orpheus, you'll sink
the boat with your lead-heavy flesh -

But the song carries them. Song
of hell, from hell, from the depths
of the heart; the lyre smiles,
drips blood offering to no one,
amoral music. No one crosses a river twice.
It's common sense: don't look back
once you've made the great leap
over the waters, alea iacta est

don't ever look back.

Following the song ever inward.
It's a labyrinth. Walls twist
in scraps of ghost. It's all brick,
all mortar, all memory and wasted life.
All that will never pulse except in here,
in the gullet, o hungry Hecate
will you never be sated? Give my soul
back to me. I cannot live without it,
I am not one of the living,
I wander lost and do not breathe -
if only I
could become whole! For these jewels
and bricks are nothing, even your magics mighty gods.
If I remained here I would not be whole -
my wound drips even now
thus give it to me, my life, I find Lethe abhorrent,
the sword which severs is my only cure -
offering of my wasted life:
sever me an exit from myself...

She hears thunder and music.
It's memory that draws her back, seduced.
Memory of a silver chord, a love undying
(o I will follow you yet, anywhere you will,
I am yours not mine) What
is death's claim, next to desire's?
Even Persephone, even Dis, can bow. They know
their own kind. Aphrodite has a home here
when she visits. The newly dead,
like gods, must answer the call of pain and prayer.
A small grace, from the gods.

Ascension
the choir of voices
dead: like angels. Winged. Pain gives wings
to the dead. So slow, victory's beating wings
are slow next to despair's bronze chariot,
why can he not speed the triumphal orchestra
to his own pace? Must pain take forever?
He has courted death so long.
He searches and searches, but nowhere
does he see his soul in the twisting hall.
Only echoes of her hands on his head;
the hands of a priestess
or a deity. Dead memories. All he sees

is a dead leaf

falling slowly through winter wind.
First snowfall. Laughing flakes. The joy
of the eternal gods. He is alive,
he who has bartered his life for song
with his soul as coin; pleading,
even though his soul is long lost,
his soul that he will never hear echo
but in mirror's perversion –
a joke, meant for himself
alone:

o why must I always look back?
For the soul is her own; she keeps her own mysteries,
she mocks me. I will never reach her being,
I will never own my soul.

Finally, I attach these last two not because they are medieval in subject matter, but because they are so much a part of me that I can't imagine not publishing them whenever I can get a chance. Publication slut? You better believe it.

The Chapel of Love (April 1992)

"I went to the Garden of Love...And I saw that it was filled with graves...And Priests in black gowns were making their rounds, And binding with briars my joys and desires." - William Blake

I made a journey by ferry
to the Chapel of Love; and entered,
naked, hair flowing like Godiva,
holding a bouquet of lilies
in my hand of making and destroying;
garlands of thorned roses were my only shields.
I did not go on hands and knees,
though custom and past passion plays demanded it;
I walked, brazen and curious,
braving the sharp stained glass
with my eyes. And I was pierced for it.
The knight with his lance rode me
and claimed me as his palfrey;
his squires anointed my flesh
with streaks of stained glass
until I was no more than a figure of glass
in a medieval window.
Such is the penance for pride
when one stands before the altar of sacrificing.
Yet I walked on, eyes daring, feet striding,
flowers dangling like broken manacles,
until I stood before my lord and master
and proclained with one sharp vorcel cry
my single vowel. "I am I," I cried,
crying "I" - until with a shriek,
the walls fell down in so much stone
and shattered glass.

The Gift of Prometheus (July, 1989)

It burns in me still:
the silken bridal veil cast over the twilight
only barely shielding the smoldering sunset;
the music of Rimsky-Korsakov,
driving like a lance into my heart,
gentle painful forcing of beauty;
the moonlight that lies on the grass,
sipping the furtive dew.
It burns in me.
The candle in my soul begins to sear through.
Fire, pure and painful,
caressing me, rending my flesh,
begging yet demanding to be released.
The world is aflame.
And I stare in joyful agony at the candelabra,
unable to partake of the supper set before me,
feasting rather on the tender danger of the flames -
at the painful beauty of a dark room
set by jewels of candle-fire,
shadow fighting agaisnt the unquenchable burning.
The candlelight burns itself into my eyes,
showing me the elegant dance
of tragedy and myth -
I am consumed by fire.
The fire will not let me go!
And in this mating of heaven and hell,
pleasure and torment, innocence and loss,
burning and shadow,
I am entranced, made helpless in my deadly moth's fascination
with the flame that beckons to me,
demanding a lover's firey union.
It burns in me still.