Absinthe

Flamineo: Yes, yes, with wormwood water; you shall taste
Some of it presently.

The White Devil, John Webster

Absinthe, amaranth, nepenthe…
The green witch has got me,
She’s eating me alive…
There’s intrigue and furore under my skin,
Phantasmal voices, pyrotechnics,
Scorpio in the ascendant,
Glittering like the razor’s edge…
It is time for raising demons,
Time for walking in the fog.
My mind is a mountain storm.
Bend sinister is my heraldry,
And I crave the naked flame.
Dread and awe possess me, draw me in,
Twist my will in the mirror,
Writhe me like a diamond’s core.
Whom beauty menaces must choose
The nature of the sacrifice.
The ceremony of the opal calls:
Pour water into the elixir
And watch the decoction cloud
And quicken, billowing like a nebula
Into smaragdine, pure metonymy.
Wormwood, herb of Mars, hot and dry
In the third degree, kill the pests within,
Chase out demons and purge me
Of falsehood, leaving the bitter truth.
They say that wormwood first grew
In the track of the serpent as he crept
Out of Paradise; and after the Seventh Seal
Was opened, the star Wormwood fell
From the skies, and devastated the earth;
In ancient Rome after chariot races
The victor would be given a wormwood drink
To remind him that even victory
Is tinged with bitterness.
Anaesthesia, anastasis: the lull
Of endless waves, visions of heart’s ease,
All the lights are coming on,
All the fireflies in the mind…
Time catches its breath, hypnotized
By the cobra’s stare; my life
Is this Grail-castle of glass,
This pierced spoon balanced
And loaded with sugar,
And cool water pouring down
To roil the primal ocean
And bring forth dreaming monsters.
Judiciously, exquisitely, I drip
The heavy dewdrops from on high,
Contemplating smoky trails
Snaking and spiralling through.
Next stop: oblivion, Lucifer’s semen.
I stare through walls, so clear
And light, rising in a terpene swirl,
To imagine worlds and wonders
As easily as breathing, a winged horse
Soaring with ease, till I stumble
And fall, convulsed, clonic then tonic,
The evil world wailing in my ears.