Under Neptune

Redeem me,
I would buy back my soul…
Sometimes eloquent,
Sometimes mute,
The daimon aspires
Towards the divine…
Dissolve,
Merge,
Forget aloneness
And death…
The waters,
The warm blue waters,
I have never ceased to dream of them…
Now come the false messiahs
And the true,
The dreams of the foetus
And the teratism
In this age of drowning.
O, Melusine,
Melusine…
No need of gods
And heroes
And monsters,
Man is mystery enough…
Does the right hand know
What the left hand is about?
Floating in my bathtub,
Archipelagoes of skin
Breaking though the surface,
Warm sheen slithers over me
Deliciously,
Soothes the aches,
Seduces, lulls, protects…
This immersion
Is both enchantment
And terror-
Drops and oceans,
Can you really make me new?
The baby is emerging,
Blood-and-water-slimed…
Nammu,
The sea,
You are essence and fate,
And my life is water,
Sperm,
Fish.
This is the world of illusion:
Rain, sap, semen, milk and blood,
Circulating
Through the endless succession
Of created worlds,
Each of which is swallowed
By the ocean whence it rose.
Fantasies, longings, nightmares and unknown powers
Roil me from the source,
Rich in imagination
And deception.
Pharaoh of desires,
Are you ready to die?
Lie down in the sarcophagus,
Embark with the sun.
Osiris stands before you,
With his phallus of clay.
The addict cries for release
Yet one hand reaches still
For the redeemer’s black gift,
The bewitching poison
That vouchsafes paradise.
In the baptismal font
I scry strange shadows
Moving in the ocean;
Will the Holy Ghost
Invest our Mass,
Or will death be the only fusion?
This is the séance
Of the mind
And flesh,
When phantoms intrude
And ectoplasm revels.
Are the planets out of kilter?
Emotions run amok,
Quaking the world’s womb
With black hysteria.
The mesmerist’s hands
Lift ritual in the air,
Invoking elementals;
Chant, beat and dance
Steal beneath the bounds
For the liturgy of waves.
Pleasure’s martyr, invite the whip
For your suffering will be
Salvation, as you expiate
Sin in fierce penance;
The empress, fate,
Means to hurt you
And by fierce blows
Draw the venom out.
In the mirrors
The faces and bodies
Of lover and beloved
Interchange;
Perfection breaks its acolytes
With a ruthless sneer
As they fool themselves
With glamour.
We will be Caesars of the invisible,
And transform state and spirit
As one, with one flourish,
Serving new devotions
Where passion and compassion meet.