The Spirits of Hartshorn
- They drink of Firewater
And so too their tears burn
When tipsyfied on sal volatile
They dance around the world –
In the name of the living dead man
I enjoin upon you fears and pasts.
- As I could not on those before you -
For your apparel: a white straight waist coat,
Fit for Kings and Men of the order of Dustbins;
A rusty spoon to be your sceptre key,
Your totem is The Fool.
Your ancestors fly out of imperial jugs
And hang upon the barren walls,
In bat-like tapestries,
Proclaiming all sorts of STDs.
And the Burning Bush is electric steel,
And the prophets come with thermometers,
And ask you how you feel. And how do you feel?
Your sins have caught up with you Woodwose!
And a droll mockery is your doom...
This is your Empire, your tomb:
A vast spread of unknowable ghettos;
Your kingdom of the cruel white face
That stares at night in a night that never ends
At an end that never is and where ‘to be’ is 'not to be'
So what is the question?
The Question is vital.
Four strong-limbed and able men shoulder your chariot,
And carry it across the gravel and the ground,
And trailing behind, after them,
A crowd of no sound;
Meanwhile, the dowser’s twigs twitch,
His beard’s itch indicates the consecrated spot
- He wipes his mouth -
‘Unload the poor fool,’ he says, and spits upon the plot.
'We buy such god-awful things,
We buy such gods and awful things come trailing behind,
After them,
The crowds of no sound,
The carrion mute!
There shall be no need for the bald vultures,' he thought.
Methuselah squats by the filthy river
That flows beside the old graveyard.
His thin wooden legs bared to the knee,
His under cloth pulled up
Held up by a string dangling in the dirt,
Trailing pictures and words as it writhes
And in his hands he holds a bone
And jumps up at the sight
Of the coming of the king
‘This is Lord Abel’s bone,’ he says
‘The Devil’s tooth!
This is the only sacred truth that you can understand,’
Sibyl looks upon the man and shudders at the thought
At dawn there was bread
And it competed with wonder
And we waited in wonder at dawn
For the man with loaf-large feet
- For he prayed by the clock, that man -
The sun will not come out tonight
And it will rain for seven days
And graves will all be left agape
The dead will walk upon the mud .
This was no flood or quake; no raging storm
Destroyed this world; no it was something else,
Much worse than the deepest sorrow, or what else?
What else could cause such devastation…
After it was spat out,
Rejected by the crust and core
The carcass of Holy Madness stood up and in anger remarked
‘Never again shall I wish for death
In such an inhospitable environment,’
And it whispered to the world those three little words
- And what is love but death?
Graveyard-dogs and lovers look for bones in others -
And whetting his sharp tongue on a tombstone, sat
And preached to the Boys in Love of the Poisoned One
‘I bet my broken heart is more broken than yours,’ they said
And he put up his hand and spoke thus:
‘Every lady of breeding will eventually invite you
To apologize to her dogs;
Incite you to decline upon your own peril...
Her method may be different,
Her approach, obscure. And what’s more,
You can never ever be sure about anything except
That somewhere up there atop the tedious tree
There is an old experienced dog, a pedigree,
Awaiting a formal apology.
Sometimes a dog is just a dog,
Sometimes it is a crotchless worm,
A father full of fiery pride,
Or it could just be her in disguise.
So unbosom yourself my sons,
When the time is right, kneel, reveal,
And then lick your wounds my dog-sires.’
Speak to us of the Reasoned man,
Tell us about the end of time.
The Reasoned man, the Conscious one
The living dead man.
The self proclaimed, the self assured
The Compromise, Profane Divine,
The Reasoned man is the end of time!
Speak to us about his world, and of his gods.
His world an empty echo is
Where some dead sun lights
A dying leaf
And there is no sky
No air, nor day or night
And day and night strange silhouettes
Like dull grey hordes of petrified trees
Appear to move like shades, drowning
In a sea of fog, like a ghostly breeze
to choke the breath of a twisted lyre.
His god, a hungry searching eye,
Never sleeps, it never weeps, it cannot die.
And It leers, always, and it covets life.
Speak to us of what he speaks, the Reasoned man.
He says there is when there is not;
The truth forgetting by the Truth forgot
His presence only tries in vain
To oppose what it cannot contain.
The conscience of the oldest man
The attitude of the Cumaean:
'In these last days
This world will end
This Fair, this Joke,
The forests without hope,
Without trees,
These endless wheezing factories.
It was all meant to be.'
'If in these last days
This world must end
Make sure I enter paradise
Or I'll drag you down with me to hell.'
The Fool is both the beginning and the end.
Profane, Divine,
The Reasoned man is the end of time.
posted by Duck @ 6:21 AM
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