Eden
Neanderthals, an ulterior species accessed into Eden’s quarries
by the auspice–art of interpreting tea leaves.
We fear the serpent for it has no legs
but, I hear it has two hearts.
Portal at perception,
a butterfly sliced its eye–spotted wings over eye’ retina.
They thought the dragon to be insect,
we now know that it is reptile.
Mane of lion was a persimmon’s flesh, in fibrous strands.
Moths left their wing–dust, as autumn’s chalk
to rotten trees with fruit in rot.
Cacao to silky soil, manure mix and coffee grinds,
all a rancid–cup, drop swan–taken of sangria’s wine.
Red silk bookmarked bare–body of chimera–swine.
Papaya showed its seeds: fish–roe in burnt–rot
all dead below the net–illusion of branches’ shadow–knots.
The gracious mango spat acid–sap.
Sick–crops let their sweet–kiss ferment,
behind a lot of locked–cement:
prison on a tropical island, where garbage ferments in solitude.
Than in a sling, newborn — Semiramis
who would build in nature’s image, gardens.
Drawn to warmth–retaining marble,
moths settled as painted–insects.
Dreams set up in the hanging gardens,
a menorah for wild–bird song.
Wind–east pushed–high a swing of pale–rose lattice.
Printed a path to the graveyard, paws of big cat.
To lightning’s hand, Sun gave sidewalk–chalks to vandalize
empty egg of robin–sky.
The dragon — ancient, airborne insect —
coiled its loops to a Corinthian–pillow
on the shoulder–hanger of Collier’s model.
Tree
Bark, cut of bridge that long–stands spinal
to outlive the legend of its matter’s original.
Petrified to stone,
when she perched top–marble’s crumbled bones,
feathers of a dove far–flown.
Columns grew in poolside rows,
their Corinthian caps held captive birds,
semi–sculpted, protruding from high aviary–marble.
Alternated doves and ravens.
At opposite width–ledges to water’s length–confine
were composing–Narcissus and nymph Echo–responding.
Prisoner–birds felt free flight on winds going inter–islands.
Correspondence folded precision–strong,
along lines dotted by dialogue’s symmetry
to paper boats that carried poems cross–pool as cargo.
Lyrics ballad–advanced pool’s surface, dancing,
scale–ascending out to Apollonian rhythm’s reaches.
Rope ran rhyming knot–paths through the letters with loops;
turns seal–locked at faith: boat’s anchors.
Myrrh trees in vases and tranquil lemons
flanked cedar–woodland’s cascades at the fountains.
Pool’s ocean–blue tiles tuned to tints for introspection
the blood to hill–grove’s circulation.
Round walls secluding cavern’s sacrality,
blue lichens paraded their lions as warm light.
Before gates’ entrance stood wild Ishtar’s apricot.
Mountain–deep there is a room, temple–adjacent:
therein a priestess received antiquity’s tyrant
and incense guided their psychosis. Inhaled Aurora,
from myrrh–root up to crown–cone smolder.
Narcissus and Echo–maledicted
found palace–cavern’s pristine acoustics —
lines chosen random from Vivaldi.
In sight was sovereign’s hunting–sanctuary.
Brim–Gallé touched with signature pollen mark–lips
and Ishtar released blossom’s distilled essence,
when tree’s fruit rotted–amber in a playland of opulent lapis.
Then picked up camp the gypsie pair.
Echo transposed their song, harp parts and all,
three octaves West off quartz wall,
on hearing the Company was returning to mine the quarry.
Paths deer–indentured were softly walked.
Crusade to stray far–feral, on the steps of artiodactyls.
Sacred mission, pilgrimage without a destination.
Tree roots anchored a stone structure’s open door,
coils rose and dove a turbulent tale over Earth — the floor.
Hunched to heavy seed, a woman’s rag–clad carcass —
died by surrender at temple’s center,
in her green–illusion’s tree–shaded ruins.
The banyan with its airborne roots
lets mosquitos fly–out their lives, its strings around,
knowing it may never reach solid ground.
Strings low–tuned,
tranquil palms at the sand bar, Echo has gone, now deeper the song.
Through cracks Shu leaves, sunrise directs in apparitions
and releases stray stars — fire shards to crown them with comet–halos.
Bastet sent three leopard cubs, up, to Hermit’s Cave.
Cubs found him,
as a lotus–held flame, untouchable, in visualization–crystal
and coughed up jewels.
Plaza of Drummer’s Steps
Flame molted by a falling star
gone ridding on its mother–comet’s route.
Collision’s tightly written in a point right on its track, crossed
sea–rope for emergent angels, surfacing.
Now that eras be good for closing,
they would have done their time in Hell.
Sun sheds a cross–section of its deep ratio, revolving.
So contributes to confusion its high–carat molten arc.
Angels’ great releaser, humble to be guided by intuition,
had imitated opus of the spider.
Up, they’re coming as a work crafted
out of tied–up acrobats.
Watching — moving slightly in range of rope —
past their portal, to glimpse damage, nonchalant.
Their advice for docking into dreamland where masochism necro–wants
is taken by the mystics as a few degrees off–track.
And interpreted as nightmares: reflections dreamt some decades past —
with sure ramification on current circumstance.
Wings–fallen see things by a flooded–mirror,
as they would have looked gothic–back.
Recorded–film by watchers, as great pulley reeled on up,
reflections were negatives
got by angels’ light with flash.
Rising, they met a farm dog — by balsamic moon kept out.
Not chained this time but left there,
to stay — as so orders ocher–wolf.
Higher, there was a pilgrim, walking sideways endless steps,
headless of displacement dancing to the rattled bells of loss:
long–skirted leper with her harbinger–limericks and her instrumental staff.
School was out, it was early afternoon
and time for urchins to come home to plaza–stairs of stone.
Lost ascending angels asked a beggar to point North.
Someone had sealed her brow with exclusion’s makeshift brand.
Thank the tides for sending angels
for sending crow–winged angels,
flown Gibraltar–over, cave and bay
with their glow–by–dark neckbands.
Sent to hoover as a lunar omen that insanity would watch.
Roosted a presence of their murder top Plaza of Drummer’s Steps.
Higher, they learned how greed hot and explicit,
expressionless in servitude,
once waited calm for Mars
to signal action put to order, volcanic up and on.
An emperor’s official chose to finally speak —
through lipstick left by the sweet–time that he had savored,
as a commander could.
Come Hermes,
you will understand that this be war.
And to be distracted by prisoners, strategically error.
But Hermes drew up killer–logic
in dust down on the floor.
Mapped victories of quick–elegance that only at the House of Life
would have been seen before.
Higher, red–light beams of angel
cast chicken wire’s shadow —
patterns scales onto grotesque hatchling.
From nesting–shot coop, horrible–hatchling modeling,
I am basilisk now, as directed, is screaming.
And for the constant clicking cameras,
battery–phoenixes are shedding chip–embers.
Up emerging, turning fingers, the weary angels,
are distinguishing between bones in the basilica’s structure.
Distracted, turning rotations, dark silicon plastic of windmill, halfway.
Some birds cannot fly.
They are the ones condemned to Earth–walking.
Alexandria
Silent–stepped, dark–stairs down,
the mess of my hair: a Pu–Abi crown.
Let me out as a joke, the jester–clown.
All the way to Alexandria,
to look up courage in my captor’s language.
An abactor had said that I would miss detention,
that the dictionary was a future–invention.
But on foot, the passage was long
and to challenge convention, I had road until Dawn.
I stole the flood
and wrestling matches with wild animals.
Searched a wood of cedars alone for courage.
“These days, all biblioklepts are whores.
You can not steal what you already share,”
from the wall, an outspoken–rat shouted to comedically declare.
Said she had learned the French she spoke
from a forward-thinking fableist,
“The freestanding structure’s iron bars belong to the knighted owner.
Foundation owned by its founder.”
Birds flew their descent to Alexandria in circles.
In corpse–ruins of bone–structure, I met with vultures.
I stole a serpent who came with immortality,
she had taken it from who had wanted it rightfully.
We fear the animal for it has no legs
but, who says it has no hearts?
In frustration, serpent–thief thrashed,
slithered terrible loops on desperation’s paths.
Tied of herself angry knots, when she knew she loved
the patron of her captor.
Good–men live lies, with arm sling–tied
and Ma’at wings around them.
With serpent round my neck, headed back.
To join literature’s menagerie as specimen–repulsion,
to be painter’s horrendous mannequin–human.
Serpent as always, acted on orphic orders.
Laid a map sky–wide in a pattern of coils
that I followed, to converse steel–tongue in gold–brick language,
off from Alexandria.
Sylvia Oriente Horricks 