Dream-book of Naples

I

Volcanoes and earthquakes
Are all my philosophy;
Nuances of sombre fate
And merry defiance.

Philosophers and thieves
Run the cycles of history
From divinity to decadence
And back to the start.

The saint’s blood boils.
Virgil’s talking statue,
Wrought by his hands,
Warns of impending woe.

In the Castel Nuovo,
King Ferrante tours his museum
Of mummified foes, executed
On his orders, each dressed
In his own clothes,
While down in the dungeons
His pet crocodile prospers,
Fattened on live prisoners’ flesh.

II

In the Sansevero Chapel,
Caught in the vortex,
I try vainly to interpret
Masonic sculptures and frescoes,
Assured that somehow
It all makes esoteric sense.
In the crypt lie preserved the flayed corpses
Of two young men,prey of Prince Raimondo,
Aesthete,occultist and Grand Master,
Who,with evil spells,petrified their blood
While they,still alive,watched,paralysed,in terror.

III

I imagine the Roman nabobs,
Gazing down on the brilliant bay
From heavenly marble villas on high,
Surrounded by copies of Greek statues,
Served by Greek cooks, poets and musicians,
Affecting the chlamys, flourishing a few words of Greek
To impress their friends at dinner parties
And plying the water in bright pleasure-boats
With silken canopies, slaves waving golden fans
Over their brows as they langorously recline.

IV

Pythagoras,
Your spirit moves me,
You, my ancestor, my mentor under the skin…
I see you on Samos, in Egypt, in India, in Crotona,
Plucking your lyre in solemn contemplation,
Testing the soul’s harmonics…
“Evil is the chaos produced by the apeiron,
When peperas-apeiron is what is required…”
Take away the noise, the evil,
The bedlam of notes all sounded together,
Without measure, without order,
Without love…
Here we live under the five-pointed star,
Ishtar, Aphrodite, Venus,
Obedient to the Theorem of the Bride,
Uttering the five vowels,
Conjuring the five Platonic solids,
Breathing the quintessence,
Celebrating the hierogamy,
The hermaphrodite,
New ideas, new directions,
The spirit resurrected from the flesh…
Berashith:
“In the beginning”,
“He created Six”…
The Star of David rules me,
Union of man and woman,
Union of God and mankind.
Amphitrite rises from the waves,
Wife of Poseidon, whose dolphin
Brought her to him,
And was set among the stars…
The sixth hour, the hour of Christ’s last breath,
This is the hour of quiet contemplation,
The day of man’s creation
And the day of his redemption.
What visions flare in the bloodstone’s heart?
The wings of the Recording Angels
Sweep overhead…

O, the thirteen heavenly fountains,
The thirteen gates of mercy,
The thirteen paradisal rivers of balsam,
The thirteen paths of love!

The nine Muses surround me,
The restless nine of incompletion, imperfection, transformation,
The sea-green winged serpent,
Hecate, queen of witches,
Sex and healing.

Naples opens to me,
Like the Sepher Yetzirah,
Like the Zohar…
I will read it and revel in it
By Gematria, by Notarikon, by Temurah.
Aleph:
Breath of breaths,
Source of all rivers,
The ox on whose horns the earth is balanced.
Berashith:
House, head, ox, tooth, hand and serpent,
The Womb of All,
The Fiat Lux,
The Cosmic Father,
The divine transforming fire,
The hand of God,
The universal serpentine energy winding…
Adam Kadmon I am,
The living Tetragrammaton,
Veiling the terrible light.
Shekinah, the fire, the lightning,
Hovers over the bed
Where the lovers writhe like snakes…
I see the divine machine illuminated,
The twenty-two paths of the Tree of Life
Inc andescing with the light of Yahweh,
Ascending and descending,
Inhaling, exhaling…

V

In the Solfatara crater,
Jets of steam seethe from pools of boiling mud,
Acrid sulphurous vapours from fumaroles
Swirl and billow around the rocks,
Here in the Phlegraean Fields.
I stand beside the Grotta del Cane,
Ancient Roman steamrooms
Dripping hot minerals
And filled with lethal gases.
The ground rises and falls beneath us,
As magma surges deep below.

According to the Talmud,
Jehovah made a number of worlds
Which he obliterated, dissatisfied,
Before he reluctantly settled for this one,
Unsatisfactory as it is.

Diamond-dazzle waves engage me
In Platonic dialogue:
The Cumean Sybil mutters in her cave,
Virgil’s hand moves across the page.
In Santa Maria del Purgatorio ad Arco,
Under the winged skull and crossbones,
In the musty hypogeum the votary
Chooses a skull to adopt and venerate,
Canonizing its powers with gifts
Of perfume and pillows,
Praying for its saintly intercession
Swiftly to grant all his wishes;
And should the skull fail him
He will smash it in revenge,
And replace it with another.
Pulcinella dances wildly,
Laughing like a madman,
Then stops, and grieves a while;
And life beats him over the head
With a beautiful stick.


VI

Three is my number,
The tetraktys,
The circle,
The Fates, the Furies, the Graces,
Apsu, Tiamat and Mummu,
Blue, red and yellow,
The fruit of the tree.


VII

I lay out the tarot cards:
These are the oracles, the heralds,
Messengers of the gods,
Setting me on the royal road.

Stepping off the cliff:
The adventure commences,
The theory of flight made real.
Time to obey the secret voice,
Forgetting others’ expectations,
Time to set off.
Spirit calls me to destiny:
The guide arrives, beautifully disguised,
And the true fools call me foolish
For knowing how to be free.


VIII

Who now remembers Philodemus and Siron,
Noble followers of Epicurus,
Devoted to pleasure and friendship?
At his villa in Herculaneum,
Philodemus founded a magnificent library
And carried out his own studies
In logic, theology,and the arts.
Siron was a man
Of integrity and severity,
So renowned that Virgil came here to be his pupil,
And lived in his house after the master’s death,
Making it a famous salon
For poets and thinkers.
Who now remembers Philodemus and Siron?
Surely these were unforgettable men.

IX

47, Dead Man Talking;
My pick for the lottery.

Is the Evil Eye abroad
Throwing darts my way?
I will make the sign of the horns
To shield me-
May snakes and sirens protect me!

Pulcinella laughs
And jests
And plays his mandolin-
The lucky hunchback,
Poor and hungry,
Bumbles along,
Somehow surviving,
Invincible and free!
Base hero,
Obscene romantic,
Philosophical rogue!

X

In the front pews of the Duomo,
Old women kneel intoning hymns in dialect,
While the congealed blood of San Gennaro,
Raised up in two glass phials,
Liquefies before the exulting congregation’s eyes,
Promising great good fortune to come.

XI

In the catacombs of the church of Santa Maria della Sanità
I survey the skulls set in the niches,
And the painted clothes and attributes of the dead
Displaying their earthly rank.

In the Cemetery of the Fontanelle,
I see the bones piled everywhere
And the skulls, adopted by the living,
Set in caskets to be prayed for,
Their souls in purgatory
Crying out for prayer and succour.

XII

Tiberius on Capri,
An old man chasing boys and girls
Among the phallic statuary,
Acting out scenes from sex manuals,
While the Empire went to pot.

City of the castrati,
Adored freaks
Sending the audience into raptures
As those acrobatic voices
Tumbled towards the stars!


In the Museo di Capodimonte
I stand before Titian’s Danaë:
Painted for the private apartments
Of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese,-
Ah,what secret rogues-
Those princes of the Church!

XIII

The cloister and gardens of Santa Chiara:
Ancient vines tangle over the walks, arbours supported by seventy-two octagonal columns covered with bright majolica tiles,
Thick garlands of green foliage tied with spiral yellow ribbons,
Amid the giant cypresses the hiss of marble fountains....
Parthenope,washed ashore on the sands,hear my voice through the quivering air!


XIV

Alone, I deal nine cards from the pack,
Lay them out in a square,
Divining by numbers and suits.
A bronze gladiator’s helmet ,
Engraved with scenes from the sack of Troy.
The double staircase of the Palazzo dello Spagnolo,
Another Sanfelice stage set.

XV

The Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii:
In cinnabar fields the matron stands sentinel
As Cupid reads the scroll to the young bride of the gods,
While Dionysus reclines in Ariadne’s lap,
And the goddess raises her whip to flagellate.
Terrified and enraptured,the betrothed
Dances in ecstasy,maiden and matron,divine.