WITCH WOMAN

I hear your voice low in the dusk

Like the notes of the harp player

That carve the still air

Into a sensuous and subtle imagery of sound

And my senses are drowned

By the scent of oleander and the musk

Of the datura dimly shining in the dark,

While your voice troubles the still air,

And I recall

An ancient garden and a secret call

And your slant eyes and your red hair

Engender dreams of days beyond despair

And under your sorcery I fare forth

To fabulous lands and meadows green with Spring

And caught on the gossamer web of evening

I behold incredible things no poet ever told.

NIGHT

Subtle and amorous

Lamia sings her love song on the evening

As is heard the alien, dubious song of the night bird

Or the purr of the lioness

In the dim, lambent dark

Or the soft disastrous word

Of murder

Following the extinguished spark

Into nothingness

All while the subject of her languorous caress

Dreams darkly dreams

As voyaging Deathward, the transfigured Swan

Sings splendorous, sad things,

Drifts deeply down and meets, with folded wings

The jeweled night

Or as the noon bright, desert sun dreams down

Into the smiling, upturned remnant of a face

A knife is beautiful, a jaguar

In motion is the embodiment of grace

And slowly in the quiet house in evening

I dream afar,

Seeking forbidden things on a black star

While, throatily, Lamia sings

Her strange caress.

As strum the stirring croatali

As the leopardess doth sing,

As does the vulture, strident, cry,

So does Lamia strum and sing and cry

As wanton as the setting of a star

In an ensanguined sea.

Dear dreadful dark,

Lean over me and press

The curtain of your awesome tenderness

Against my mind.

Mother of stars, the secret of your vast maternity

In the infinity

Of the deep scented terror of the night

As echoes long

Lamia's doubtful song.

THE FOOL

I followed a lonely way

I followed a drifting star

And following ever, a beast behind,

But the star was far and far.

I left the cozy corral,

I left the comfortable herd

To seek a dream in the dreamy sky

And a skirling song unheard.

I found a wonderful flower

That mirrored the dream in the air.

I reached to gather the flower in

For my close curling hair

And a little spotted snake

Struck from the golden bud . . .

I followed a lonely way

With poison in my blood

I walked a dreadful way

In the jungle, sick and blind

With quiet laughter overhead

And a monstrous beast behind.

At last I turned at bay

On the narrow way I trod

And screamed aloud at what I saw,

For lo, the beast was God!

With the eyes of a laughing girl

And the flower in his hair

And the spotted snake about his throat

And his face was cruel and fair.

PAN

Do not lament thus, who have known and lost me

With pale pastels and sounds of tuneless lyres,

I was the amber girl when first you found me,

The golden boy in the portal of new desires,

I was the wind of spring, the scent of roses,

I was the night, the garden, and I the fire,

The rod that wakes, the flower that disposes,

I the immortal singer, the song, the lyre.

I am the Autumn now, my winds are blowing

Blossoms of Summer barrenly they blow

Leaves and desires and summer hopes foreknowing

I shall be Winter and silence of the snow.

Still I am thine, O stricken heart, to follow

Past gale and glacier, where I brood alone,

Exultant, where all hopes and fears are hollow,

The core of steel within the heart of stone.

I, who am black and bleak with old disasters,

Was I not beautiful, and am I now the less

Than all the pale and pure and pretty masters

That leave you now upon my wilderness?

Then will you dare me, stinking and sardonic

Who called me, soft and lovely, by my name?

Embrace me then and feel my kiss demonic

Shatter the glacier and reveal the flame.

STONEHENGE

The summer thunder clatters in the west

As though

The ghosts of Caesar's iron legions go

Behind the hills.

The ancient oaks are shadowy and still.

The mistletoe

Subservient in the argent of the glow

Of moonlight, waits the golden sickle's will.

The woods await a thaumaturgic tune

That called old gods beneath a younger moon,

And will await until the gods come back.

I know

They will return, who, going, left the slow

Still circle broken and the altar black.

THE GARDEN

There is a garden where Death has gone to sleep . . .

Dark Death, like a pale, tired boy, nods drowsily,

For he is enamored of her and doth keep

Her luminous blossoms forever from decay.

There in the dusky day, in the dim air

Dreams, like disturbing notes from a secret song,

Shimmer and float between beauty and despair

In an ecstasy no heart endures for long.

And to this golden garden all lovers come,

Young lovers, happening on eternity

Where dark Death sleeps and dreams, there venturing some

Are briefly raised beyond desire or pity,

Raised to a pitch of beauty unendured

Bt faint mortality, whose sobbing shakes

The garden's subtle silence, that immured

Sleep from which inhuman labyrinth Death wakes.

DANSE

The night, a huge black panther flecked with stars,

Uneasily allows the warm west wind's caress.

The moon, disastrous golden banner, slightly smiles.

Off-stage, an orchestra complains of Love.

Center, a sad-faced ape in clown costume

Danses slow, stately circles.

A werewolf, left, sings raucously,

A horrible, small song,

While, right, a vampire fondling a skull,

is also smiling.

Alto saxophone in the orchestra (sings),

"My love, my love, my love."

Werewolf (sings)

"Oh moon, oblique and smiling sinister,

Oh, bloody promise in the sky,

Oh, beautiful dancer mine,

Betrothed, beloved—"

(He howls)

(Saxophone) "My love, my love, my love—"

(Werewolf) "Rot flesh and go down Kingdom

To a sunken, jelled sea

Where black stars and wicked women

Reel in infamy."

The vampire, smiling still, regards the skull,

Which vocalizes in a rich, deep baritone,

(Skull) "Believe me if all those endearing young charms, etc."

The ape continues dancing

(Werewolf) "O, night of stars that coruscate

Like semen spated in the womb of night—

O, serpent woman smiling sinister—

O, lovely dancer at the feast to be."

Saxophone: "My love, my love, my love."

SORCERER

I see him tread a craggy path

Over dark hills, outlined against the sky,

In a flapping cloak and his sardonic eye

Gleams with a joyous wrath.

And he lifts his arms and behold,

A flight of birds all gold

In the sunset, carrying dreams,

Strange dreams from out of Africa and Spain.

Then, in a harsh voice, he spells he sun

And leaps and dances on its crimson tomb,

Casting distorted shadows on the moon

New risen.

I see him flinging out his cloak,

That swells and swirls like thick smoke,

That rushes outward and expands

To engulf the houses in all lands.

Now, naked on the highest peak,

He pauses with both hands above his head,

He laughs, he flings them out with all his might

And sows a million stars upon the night.

UNDER THE HILL

Now while the sky is apple green

And the wind is still, and the moon is ripe,

Come to the hollow under the hill

While the night is young, and the evening thrills

To the thump of drums, and the strum of strings

And the shrill cry of the pipe.

A girl and a goat are dancing there

In the hollow under the hill.

The goat is black as the girl is fair,

But his eyes are gold as her flying hair,

With the thump of drums, and the strum of strings

And the shrill cry of the pipe.

His eyes are yellow and patient and wise,

But the golden girl has a demon's eyes

To the thump of drums, and the strum of strings

And the shrill cry of the pipe.

NARCISSUS

Drug me with drugs

Slow acting, sensuous, sweet.

Co-mingle gin and musk,

Hashish and amber.

Let me drink and breathe

And hear slow, devious music

Until aroused

To subtle, languorous moods,

Until I see

Ochre and mazarine and purple

Emit lascivious sounds.

Then I shall go

Through dark and gothic ruins,

Grey and golden mists

Down to a forest coeval,

Green

With an old dream

I shall go naked

Amid magnolia and oleander

Datura and jasmine,

Whose blossoms will open and vaginally flower

In infinite time, for a relative hour,

Whose white, subliminal flowers

Will caress my breasts.

And I shall perform stately,

Phallic arabesques

In the moonlight,

Pale and white.

AZTEC

In a far place, in a dry land

Where skull face with clawed hand

Beats Death Drums.

In a high place, in a far land

Where beak face with stone knife

Draws thin lines on taut chest

Where hot life beats Death Drums.

In a red place, where a red sun

Is blood red and a damned race

Hear skull face beat Death Drums.

And each face is skull face

And spit runs from sharp mouth

In a dead sun and the hot draught

Is done Death Drum.

In a red rain, in a red feast, in a red

Pain, where a red beast with a skull face

Beats Death Drums

Death Drums

Death Drums

SABAT

Ah, the horned moon

Smiles in the purple sky

Not more obliquely sly

Than your sly smiling, sister.

See the ebon goat's

Wide, dubious yellow eyes,

No more wildly wise

Than your wild, wise eyes, sister.

Hark a muted drum

Beats in the woods below

And what the lights that go

Incessant, to and fro.

Stars, they have caught, sister,

And their eyes,

Like yours,

Yellow and wise.

What shall the altar be,

And what the chalice cup?

What incense offered up,

And what the altar fire?

The altar shall be white

As you white body, sister,

The chalice cup be red

As your mouth, sly smiling.

Bright blood and dark desire

Shall feed the altar fire.

PUNCH

Light and airy, bright and faery

In the glade—how she whirls,

Like a paragon of girls,

On the strings, gossamer things,

Leading upward to the wings

In the boughs

Worked by long inhuman fingers,

Watched by sly, inhuman eyes,

Eyes of spiders watching flies.

Right foot forward, left foot back,

Flashing curls and dainty face,

Like a little painted death.

Now he spies her, draws his breath,

Tiptoes closer, stares enrapt,

Reaches out essaying hands—

Jerks the strands.

Down, down, dreadful clown

On the unsuspecting clown,

Clicking fangs and fearful screams

And silence, and thereafter—

Low, long laughter.

MERLIN

Red bearded Barbarossa sleeps

In Traumfells, where the raven keeps

His sentinelship, nor yet

Is Roland from his tower come,

Nor Arthur back from Avalon.

The hours darken and the years

Grow black with evil things

And mad machines spawn monstrous fears

That follow sleep with somber wings.

The sword lies dreaming in the stone

Neath waters over Avalon.

I would there were one man to tell

The evil dream, the darkling hell,

To seize the sword, to raise the spell,

Then England's mighty oaks would sing,

The mistletoe, beneath the moon,

Would glow and chant the Druid rune.

The spirit of the corn

Would walk, and greet the morn.

ARADIA

The wind is a tumult of shouting and laughter

And over the valleys and in the sky

I hear your piping and follow after.

I see the rioting clouds go by.

Your hair is a banner for the rally of rainbows,

The wind is a tame wolf with your rollicking sheep,

Splendor of sunbursts are shafts for your arrows

And meadows marshall and march at your feet.

Flower and feather and fur in wonder

Follow your stride to the singing sea

And ocean greets you with murmur and thunder,

With swell of billow and shimmer of lea.

Then striding to mountains with sunset flaming;

A radiant brand in your lovely hair,

With fire and purple, I see you taming

The wrath of winter, the fury of air.

AUTUMN

If all my words were stars on silver strings,

Or oceanic jewels, or from the well,

Of my heart's blood, there are some things

Of which I could not tell, could never tell.

I could not tell how autumn sadness stirs

Sear memories and balked desires half known,

Or how the summer moon, behind old firs

Smiles secretly, triumphant and alone.

Or, how far mountains move majestically

In evening shadows when the embers die,

Or why the night is still, or of the free,

High tumult of the wild geese in the sky.

Or where dead leaves go, or the leaves that blow

Down drifting winds to other lands than these,

Of songs of summer isles and silent snow

And dim disasters under sullen seas.

Least could I tell you what is in my mind,

Seeing your face on mist I half forget,

Half hope, remembering the wind

Stirring your hair to flames of old regret.

FAREWELL, UNKNOWN

Remembered, faraway

Or near at hand, forgot,

You are in every land

Where I am not

I see you walk the wind

Like a banner flying

Where the sun sets, with the day

And the summer dying.

Lips, hair and lovely limbs

Eyes I called you

Flashing the desperate message

I never knew.

You are on all roads now

I have not taken,

With all remembered things

Lost, or forsaken

With the stars and the hills

And the geese that go

And all the things I have loved

And do not know.

Beloved, I have not known,

That I knew so well,

Being both mine and alone,

Unknown, farewell.

PASSION FLOWERS

Where are you going, mother, mother

By the dark wood stream

Where wolfbane grows, and deadly clover

And the owls eyes gleam?

I am gathering simples, son, my lover

And flowers for memory of my daughter

A hand full of ashes is all they cover

But they will suffice for those that sought her.

Why do you gather monkshood chilly

And hellebore, and laurel cherry

When she was as fair as the valley lily

And her hair red as the rowan berry?

Three times she called on Satan, lover

In the public square, in the red fire light

And once for vengeance to me, her mother

The herbs I gather will serve, tonight.

KING DAVID

Not for the sorry carrion that was laid

Bleeding before Judeah for a whore—

Beloved prostitute, nor for the lustful dust

That smiles no more upon my carved bed.

Not for the eight left hanging until rain

Washed down the anger of a righteous god

Or Merab's lamentation for her sons

Or Michal's golden harvest gone to weed.

Not for those dirtied hands, this bloodied robe

This beard blown awry in the winds of time

Nor for the sudden lightning long lost

In alien thunder on the distant hills.

Not even for the tall and headstrong son

Scowling and dark and beautiful, that lay

Sprawling in blood upon the Hebron plain

But for one thing, a young man's face

Under mad eyes that guessed, but never spoke.

NEUROSIS

Oh pale face, dreaming in the dark

Master of webs and silences

Amid luxurious blossoms of the night

Where ghostly, long limbed spiders slowly stalk

And reach up dubious feelers to your eyes

Serenely closed.

Festoons of dim evasions by a lank lagoon

Half truths that fatten on a secret life

And take weak wings, and wander with the wind

Gone seeking.

Old loveliness o'ergrown with gaudy molds

Lost powers, like the trunks of blasted trees

Old songs gone hollow in an empty house

Forsaken.

A shutter opens on the wind

And something sly looks out, and is afraid

Perceiving tokens of a murdered spring, deep buried.

A pale distorted face upon the night

Master of webs and silences and lies

The night moths flutter round it like a bloom

Slow closing.

EDEN

There were four in the garden

Not two, as they say

And that is the reason

The world is this way

There was Adam, and Lillith

And Satan, and Eve

And Adam loved Lillith

Forsaking poor Eve.

Then Eve loved Satan

And Satan himself

And Lillith loved Lillith

In darkness and stealth.

And God loved the four

Which was certainly odd,

Since in all the confusion

No one loved God.

BIERCE

And now bitterly

I look upon God

Ialdabaoth

Ironic, vengeful, and grotesque.

He calls himself Pancho Villa

But I know Him

Who set Halpin Fraser

Gnawing his mother's bones in a graveyard

And I am caught up into heaven alive,

Cursing.

HARPOCRATES

How craftily does this pale ape conspire

To snare a god in webs of memory

And weave from incest an oblique desire

For an ephemeral nervenet's immortality.

Out of failed hopes, dead loves, dreams gone awry

Like some sea creature leaving halls of shell

He builds so beautifully the gods must envy

Monuments to his fear of ghosts, and hell.

Seeking, forever seeking out of season

In every future solace from the past

And in a moment's trance transcending reason

He shall not last, but shall himself outlast.

From unbreached loneliness his soul goes winging

To undreamed heavens or an unknown doom

Against this heedlessness I hear him singing

Deep in the darkness of a little room.

LESBIANS

I suppose I should hate you, whose red mouths are sullen

And whose eyes look upon one contemptuously

Save that I too have known the pain and sadness

Of lust for that which cannot be.

Yes, I have known unbridled lust and madness

Of passion for the passionless caress

For the moon's fire and the grey ocean's gladness

And the incredible flower in the ice wilderness.

Therefore I love you, sisters in damnation

Whose loves, more cruel and tender than my own

In soft melodious songs make incantation

That calls the goddess from the Ionian sea foam.

NIGHT SONG

I saw a gipsy going

Into a factory

A red flower going

On a black river flowing

Down into hell.

I heard a strange song rising

Out of a prison

A star rising

And yearning and burning

Out of a tomb

O gipsy going

Flower flowing

Star glowing

What doom?

THE WITCH HOUSE

I have strayed in a forest enchanted

Where balefire glows

And followed a face, witch haunted

The mad moon knows.

I have come to the hostelry of poets

To the Sylvan's home

Where angels and shadows foregather

In black star foam.

Yea, where corpse lights flicker

And witches gleam

And the past, unbearably nostalgic

Looms in a dream

And the future, evanescent and tragic

Is met in a dream.

Here in the darkness suspended

From the heaven that was, and is ended

And the heaven to be

What phantoms I see.

Winged demons, like kings in a story

Set empires before me

And princesses woo me, and witch queens pursue me

In castles of glass

And the panoplies pass—

And I struggle with specters and cobwebs—

I speak with the moon

And slyly my shadow behind me

Is weaving a doom

And death, like the tick of a clock in a boarded up room

Whispers circle and circle and circle forever

Too late and too soon.