poem16 Nov 2015 11:12 am

 

"Weirdtales1924-03" by Vol. 3 , No. 3 - Scanned cover of pulp magazine. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weirdtales1924-03.jpg#/media/File:Weirdtales1924-03.jpg

 

for t. winter-damon

Forever interpreting
ancient texts
as their tattered
scrolls unrolled
within his mind,
treading the borders
of the Axis Mundi
with no more than
an empty leather satchel,
ranging the streets
of Xanadu and Carcosa,
Asgard and Babylon,
tracking like a beast
with a ravenous beast
astride its back,
whispering sacral curses
and foul blessings
to the eldritch winds.

Immersed in dreamtides
and chimerical visions
and cimmerian prophets
whose shadows rose
from the dust of ages,
worshipping priestesses
created for the day,
following transient avatars
down to a dim beach
and the dark sea
of a false dawn
to hear the damp cries
of beached mariners
echoing in his brain.
Intoxicated by secret keys
and magical rings,
obsessed by puzzle boxes
with hidden compartments
only to be opened
by the wisest of men
and most cunning women,
drunk on myth and
history and a tomorrow
that foreshadowed
more than night.

Enthralled by the occult
and the fantastic,
Crowley and Blavatsky,
Faustus and Paracelsus,
Levi’s Dogme et Rituel
de la Haute Magie,
poring over maps
revealing the locations
of imagined kingdoms,
Mu and El Dorado,
Atlantis and Shangra-La,
the Archipelago of Dreams,
maps fashioned by madmen
on a transcendental high
over a fifth of Ravens Rum
and a pinch of fly agaric.

Anticipating the excavation
of underwater ruins
and red temples
crumbling to red sand
in some distant desert,
astounded by age-old
architectural mysteries,
the Great Pyramids,
the dour monoliths
of Easter Island,
the astronomical
savvy of Stonehenge,
awaiting the lab tests
on the Shroud of Turin
and the release of
a revised annotation
of the Bardol Thodol,
praying for the miraculous
to snuff the everyday.

Last heard from
traveling to parts unknown,
head down and eyes afire,
carrying no more than
a worn leather satchel
stuffed with worlds.

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