Exeunt



After
the fire, the long ice. Antic clashing among the shadowy rocks. At the beginning, before what would be. After the ice, water. Abracadabras of flannel flowers, doves erupting from the sleeve of god. Apples of Sodom. Arrival of the always that went everywhere. Après le déluge … a forgetting, a wandering wondering where are the true states of mind. Among the myriad that we pass through, or that pass through us, each minute, hour, day, which are real? Areal?
All


Before
forgetting is remembering. Before remembering, mind. Before mind … god? Bruised beyond redemption, broken in pity, biblical. Besotted, fearful, today you remember everything. Bountiful memory! Bright lie! Begin at the beginning and go all the way to the end that has not yet come. Bolder than bold, blacker than black, botched or not, the whole kit and caboodle stretches out before and behind you. Both the track and the tears; both landscape and inscape.
Blessed


Could
it be so? Child of god, where do you wonder? Can you say or is it a conundrum without issue? Cordillera in the consciousness, cliffs of fall, concussive recitative … let us wander the shores of unknown seas. Cross into the beyond of yesterday, that future lost forever in the past. Criminal, coeval, conspiratorial, caught. Carelessly scattering the vowels and consonants that hithertofore we have clung to, or exchanged. Clouds of unknowing call us.
Come


Damnation
is the fate of those who abandon god. Does the same apply to we who have been abandoned by god? Do you know the answer to this riddle, strange traveller? Dolce et decorum est pro patria mori. Don’t forget: the last refuge of a scoundrel. Days and nights in the wilderness. Daguerreotypes of ghosts never before seen, never seen again. Down is the name of a country we cannot live in or leave. Delights of paradise whispered in the ears of the damned.
Demon


Eidola
mass at the doors of perception. Endlessly suggestive of that which might have been, might yet be. Eidetic, erogenous, never less than weird. Except that … who can say what form a phantom or a spectre might take when seen from the other side of forever? Eye of god, inhuman, pitiless, empty of sentiment, stark as the last sunlight on Girdlestone peak … execrable. Exiting that gaze into the malign uncertainties of our own, they persuade us of the existence of angels.
Eon


First
there was nothing. Finally, nothing again. From then to now to when, what? Fandangos of god’s superlative elegance, or the finangling of demons? Fricassees of atomic moles, genetic soup, hollow cell membranes frozen inside meteors dropping into Canadian lakes. Fur flies in the north. Fivestones. Fissile material. From the far reaches, a murmur of voices, cosmic weeping at the margins of the black forest, the black ocean, the black sky. For what did we come? For why?
Fall


God
’s blood runs in your veins. God’s wounds are your wounds. God’s gonads too. Gnomon of the inarticulate sun, guide of the lost, globule of the death star. Given that these are your words, is this then your world? Going towards followed by coming away from. Ground of meaning turned over to an archaeology of exchange in which the other is always substituted for the one. Gloss of an expunged text, grisaille of infinity, cadaver of the perfected body.
Gone


Hell
is the absence of god. Here and now, you suffer all possible torments. Hush-a-bye baby on the tree top. Hoarstones trouble your sleep, the nightmare shrieks down the alleys of your mind. Hope there is in both hopeful and hopeless. Happiness cannot be pursued, not any longer. However it comes, that is how it will go. Higher than light, into the hypnagogia, that sphere beyond spheres, your haploid self ascends. Head in hand, hand to heart, heart in mouth, mouthing.
Horror


Ion
accused of unspeakable acts in the forum, sent into exile. Ithyphallic god of nomads at the edge of the Imperium. Isinglass, mica, finings, glue. In this wine we drown, by this ivy we are strangled, on this isthmus we shall forever stray. Irrefragable, the doom written in the irade: I do not wish ever to hear his name again. In that moment, a chorus of sighs rose from all around, the voices of stones saying over and over again the one impossible word, incunabula of his loss.
Incest


Jah
lives. Jesters unique as kings, one for each. Joking aside, there is no other way of understanding the loneliness of regency. Journeying, sharing the jeroboam, the fool and the monarch shudder to an alcoholic halt under jacinth skies. Jimson weed sends you blind. Jiving with Jesus sends you … just a closer walk with thee … through this world mysterious and vague … Juxtapose half of six billion with their other halves, what do you get? … juvenescence of the year/Came Christ the tiger.
Joy


Kilter
was something he was always out of, in the same way that he was never kempt. Kissed the Blarney Stone, lying on his back and stretching out over the void to place his lips where god could not reach them. Knew that he would never be lost for words again. Keening. Killing him softly with their song. Kurdaitcha man came one night, stole a kidney, since then, the other has been working overtime. K.O. is O.K. backwards. Kilometres to go before we sleep.
Key


Love
late walking in the aisles of rain. Light of evening, Lissadell. Lissom, lubricious, licit … lost. Limbo of libido, Limpopo of lust exiled to the dead heart, limit of thought, god’s lying end. Landloper’s song fades past Tungsten Gate where Xanthe waits no more at the caravanserai. Loveless, lovelorn, lovesick, yet still you love. Lustra pass. Luteous years, tawny with longing. Later, after the rain and the tears and the night’s white sighs, you learn again how to listen.
Loam


Meandrine
paths, through coral, through mind, winding. My god, my god, why hast though forsaken me? Meaning does not inhere. Memory wastes. Materiality fades in the face of the monstrance. Moon, moraine, monosyncline, monsoon. Make of this what you can, for it is certain that you will (l)anguish without protection once god has died. Moreover, he dies again each time he is denied. Mons veneris, unclimbable. Mourning. Miracle is not to have been born at all.
Mystery


Nuncios
reflect upon diplomatic slights, remembered for centuries. Nuncupate wills bequeath only resentment. No-one knows how to end the blood feud between god and the gods. Nor even God himself … not love that I’m running from, just the heartache I know will come. Nepenthes priced beyond your range, nates of loss, neuralgia of the wizened hand. Never again, never before, never more, never never. Nymph in thy orisons … Now anticipates next, next recalls last.
Nectar


Opium
of the masses, law of the discarded middle, oxygen of love, orisons, torsions … O.K. means orl korrect (joc.). On the far side of the ocean, a chemical sea, washing the ferrous sand with its salts. Oleaginous life, clinging to the margins. O western wind, when wilt thou blow? Omphalos. Omit no time. Oligocene to now, epoch of the primates. Opus terminus of the god of all this … order. Or chaos, whichever you prefer. Orb and oblate of the orient. Enceinte.
Old


Primate
of all England, a monkey in robes, wearing a mitre. Primordial delusion, priapic vanity, primum mobile. Perhaps it is time to leave the gods to their own devices, perhaps god’s away on business. Pulsars at the furthest edge of the universe engage his attention. Persuasion will do no good, prayer is useless, promises will not be kept. Puer aeternis in a gavotte with a senescent priest. Pinions engage the clockwork of creation. Plangent, placid, all but played out.
Pluto


Quean
of the imaginary, quatorzain of love, quaternary delusion. Quite why we are here nobody really knows. Quantity or quality remains an incommensurable choice. Quavery voice of the aeons proclaims the eternal recurrence of all things. Questions without answers, answers without questions. Quandary: quarks quark, queers queer, quid or quiddity, who knows? Qur’an is god’s last book? Quiet of evening, stillness of water, faint braille of stars on black quilt of sky.
Quill


Recent
retreats of ice recall earlier epochs, a watery world. Radio love broadcasts on all frequencies, without ratiocination. Railways run to the end of the earth, a train leaves the last platform and climbs into the sky. Round the rugged rocks the ragged rascals … three, three the rivals. Rapturing in a ratskeller. Raucous birds calling from the future, the one god will not see. Reptiles wore feathers in the Jurassic, a rubefaction of time. Rehearsal for undermining, catastrophic reprise.
Rain


Snake
in the garden, saying: Ye shall not surely die. Seismic shift, shatter of bones, eyes opening on the unseen. Saying: Seek and ye shall find. Serein, falling from a cloudless sky, at evening. Saraband or serenade, swansdown of sublunary light, skin sere like old leather. Shofar sounds on the baked plains of Jericho, walls do not fall. Sheer drop, shot silk, satin and lace. Seductive world, how not to eat of god’s apple? Sea pink, sea kale, sea angel, sea horse. Silver and gold.
Song


Triage
of gods, who shall we examine first? Take which fiction to task? Tragacanth for the holy spirit will come, by tumbrel, from the west. Twice told tales of fathers and sons. Tryst or triste? Tomb of reality, trapeze without net, machine without a ghost: this Universe. Tuberous spring, tubercular summer, tumult of autumn, winter of total war. Tessera to enter the Coliseum, where tranced men and beasts contend. Tertian fever. Trumpery of a tired theology.
Time


Umbelliferous
dark. Understanding nothing but, yes, standing under the stars. Unreal City, the capital of Ultima Thule. Unmarked trams spark through the murk, rendezvousing with the Underground at Central. Until you have been unsexed you will not know god’s uttermost ecstasy. Utopia the last stop on the suburban line. Uvular speech. Usurious, uxorious, useless man. Undine spoke last of all, what she said made no sense to anyone not already a water nymph.
Urn


Venusian
inspection of Earth discloses conditions inimical to life as they know it. Verglas clogs in their lungs. Viruses insinuate themselves into their DNA, visiting the future by proxy. Vaster than empires and more slow. Voluptuous time, veridical miracle. Vomer broken by a blow to the face. Vulgarity of blood on god’s lips. Vatic speech interrupted in the forum by an irruption of Goths, Huns, Vandals. Vulcanized rubber on wheels of carts trundling towards eternity.
Vulva


Windows
glazed with yellow light on god’s last afternoon in the world. Worth every minute, it was. Wandered into the Wendy house, looking for laughter. Wasn’t there. When, when and whenever death closes our eyelids … We cannot say why, nor can we stop asking. Wolfram mined in dark valleys, welded to make the adamantine gates, out in the autonomous zone. Whirled beyond the stars, wreathed in sorrow, wrecked. Wraiths at his wittering lips, awaiting the end.
Wind


Xanthe
heartless, unfaithful, beautiful, where did you go? Xoanon of some mysterious god, fallen from heaven, worshipped by barbarians, why? X marks the spot where I wept for you, the yellow acids of the earth staining my skin. Xenophobes gather under the portico, announcing my exile. X rays of my heart show a blackened core, drier than dust. Xeroxs of you proliferate everywhere I go, copies of copies of copies, each generation a little more blurred than the last.
Xylem


Yare
yare, good Iras; quick. Ytterbium or yttrium? You cannot say where in the lanthanides this silvery or greyish metal occurs. Years later, we come again to the yarborough where no number over nine is admitted. Yardbirds rehearse their back and forth, endlessly. Youth is wasted on the young; yet how could it be otherwise? Yawing of a yacht from its course; yaws, passed venereally, colouring the skin red. Yes, anticipate the godly light. Y chromosome, yearning for an X.
Yield


Zac
tanner, a sixpence for her shoe ... Zener cards prove that intuition exists, zig-zagging through consciousness like an unused road. Zenith of possibility, zen of nullity, immured in the zenana. Zodiacal light in the east, tall triangle, after sunset. Zircon nights we danced heedlessly away, in another time, before we lost each other unaccountably and forever. Zygote of the single flight, zeroth of love, gamin inexistent and desired as god, unzip my chest and so remove my heart.
Zero