Prima Clavis:
take a fierce grey wolf, which, though on account of its name it be subject to the sway of warlike Mars, is by birth the offspring of ancient Saturn, and is found in the valleys and mountains of the world, where he roams about savage with hunger.
Here is the wolf
the wolf and woods and dark
the monster made of eyes,
the star-pierced black that eats the moon.
shall I go down to the netherworld by the mouth of the lion?
Or shall the wolf confound me?
Gravedirt in my friends’ teeth
each blue pill
a tooth in the mouth of the wolf
the hollow kingdom and burned city
coil of pale worms in dirt.
Rigging for shipwrecks.
Here is the child in the dirt
like the moon in the belly of the wolf.
Dark in the mine and the river and the ocean at night
the howling mouth, the train brakes song
a lone tanker, filled with oilblack
the dirt in the belly of the worm
a shape cult out of black felt
a worm that eats the stars
Here is the secret, the wolf in the belly of the child
the never-sated fire, mouth in the dark
the thing that eats stars and moon
and wolves and dirt and city and child
now gnawing itself in the smallest hungry house
Here is the house
it’s windows alight
ghost ship, silver bridge,
worms in the crossbeams
the wolf in the woods
Here is the house of a thousand doors
and the forbidden key
the black battlements of Dis
burning city on the poison river
here my city of dead in the dirt
here is my house, forever burning
this kingdom of tiny houses
fed one by one into the furnace-mouth
the queens of air and darkness
the
pale kings devoured by worms
II Clavis
They must be stripped of all their glorious apparel, and must lie down together in the same state of nakedness in which they were born
god of thieves and hedgerows
the raised stone at the end of land
scribe, and author of letters
Ellegua, Exu, Legba
opener of the way
Here the knife edge between living and dying
Psychopomp, doorman,
blind boatman with a mouth filled with razors
here the final breath
the gatekeeper and the gate
the needle bridge of a moment
the doorman of the dark kingdom
the dawn, stripped of her veils
the silver bridge with its dark angel
pills on the plate, a belt slackening around an arm
and the black water rising.
river of hatred,
river of forgetfullness,
river of woe,
river of lamentation
river of fire
slung between the mirror and the sun
between the speaking and the silence
between the televisions dead static and the rent-to own table
the snakes coil, fucking on the dead tree
blind god of chaos and frenzy
of the in between, the either/or
the also/and
the lines drawn out, blue, or white
on china dinner plates
Here is the boy, and the corpse
and a silver bridge between them
a balloon’s worth of air shaped into a name
a letter in a dead hand
the tired card tricks of gender
of living and of dying
the queen of the flowering dark
the frozen roses twine in the peeling wallpaper
here is the dead alive boy
in a flickering memory,
like burning film
the gate swinging on its hinges
the bedsheet’s empty scissored eyes
the hand beneath, a whisper
blind prophet that cannot die
climbing through a window with pinwheel eyes
the white line, a highway, an end to a kingdom
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall
and walked among the lowest of the dead
Then it must be so exalted as to shine more brightly than all the stars of heaven, and in its essence it must have an abundance of blood, like the Pelican, which wounds its own breast,
Here the great and terrible beast
that exults in destruction
wolf loose in the parliament of birds
devourer, conquering worm
hungry dog with the easter ducklings in his mouth
cracked streets, and hill and forest fire
For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.
burning bird that nests in the ashes
cockatrice, sideshow wonder
blood-drunk basilisk and howling death
dirt mouthed gravestone teeth
locked gate and chain
waiting to grind the child before it is born
My heart is smitten, and withered like grass; so that I forget to eat my bread.
in the wild and blasted place
leafless and burning wood,
dark beyond the last streetlight
in the ruined house, the wet books fatly swollen
crawlspace under the porch
house with the tree falling
tree grown round the rusting plow
logging road and radio tower
and the tick filled grass
and a cloud of starlings blots the sun
By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin.
Here the prince of rain-stuck doors
the lord of the earth, of wheel-ruts and poisoned grass
of gasoline pentacles burned in the autumnal earth
the suicide-kings of broken pots, of stolen sweets
leering devil of the muddy hedgerow and the rotting corn
red as a beet walking up and down the earth and in it
bonfire kingdom, tangle of briars and oak
hoary willow walking on the creekbed,
catfish mouth drying in the crackling mud
saint of broken bottles, paper priest
bleach bottle float, jetsam on the high water line
I am like a pelican of the wilderness: I am like an owl of the desert.
here the downfallen king and morning star
the angel with the turkey buzzard wings
poppies in his eyesockets, mouth full of blue teeth
devours the children of men
IV Clavis
At the end of the world, the world shall be judged by fire, and all those things that God has made of nothing shall by fire be reduced to ashes, from which ashes the Phoenix is to produce her young
here the dead boy
Fire goes before him
see him caper and dance
on this candle-lit stage
this motionless parade
this processional and choir
Here the great lightening struck tree
we gathered around on the access road
the place I dreamed of the earth’s hollow kingdoms
her secret eyeless kings, the covered eyes of the angels
of the hilltop we raised stones to heaven
circle and sanctuary raised above the storm
blinking radio tower and cairn
where I was gutted, my belly filled with stones
a worm filled with dirt
here is the city we burned
the shimmering silver star
on blotter paper
silver bridge across the burning river
the black birds, the smokestack exhaust
the armory in the woods
we drank behind, the forest I saw burn
and grow again, green shoots in the ashes
hollow hills, storm drains coil beneath the floodwall
in the secret room in the earth
the dead boy smiles
frozen in silver and paper
in a curling photograph
he waves, laughs, flips off the camera
In his smallest house
he is smaller still,
a dry husk in the darkness the fingers curling
this tinder, this kindling
this knot of worms and scaffold of bone
this scrap of parchment and film and memory
this dead dried poppy-soaked corpse
set him dancing like a puppet
with the victrola crank of time
that shudders back and forth
a magic lantern show, a curiosity
a year in a jar, wet specimen
in a cabinet of bones a marionette on powerlines,
dangling beneath, a broken, silent radio
the great starless quiet to of never
like a sky that refuses to rain
For what is dead cannot produce life and growth, seeing that it is devoid of the quickening spirit.
Here is dirt crawling with worms
the snake with the fruit in its mouth
the moon in its boat in the underground river
dead seed in the belly of the soil
here the grave, and the never growing thing planted there
neat agricultural rows of boys
and babies, of small houses dreaming in their separate dark
like trailers in the flatlands
like a golf course at night, with a bottle in hand
cicada song thick in the trees
a cemetery of headstones like pills, like teeth
here is an arching tree,
that claws at the sun to devour it
the crowned toad, the ravenous birds
the bag filled with the seven winds
here the burning, never ending summer
in which the boy lives now
burned like the shadows of the bombed city
like the acid etched plate of the printmaker
the way the map is not the territory
the way the record skips, the film burns
stubble of wheatfield at the end of the tracks
light pollution of town on the horizon
like a lie about dawn
here is the statue of the boy that is remembrance
which speaks and calls down fire from heaven
like a gourd filled with ashes, like a metal horse
like a carved stone, a brass snake upraised
to tell the dead and smouldering cinder of the world
to grow again, in horrible shapes
kudzu climbing a dead tree
the dead truck on its axles and the briars growing through
the fiery King will be seized with great love towards the Queen, and will take his fill of delight in embracing her, until they both vanish and coalesce into one body.
Here is the furnace and the foundry
and the fire, and the young boys drunk
the tinny radio on the riverbank
the house party, the smell of ditch weed,
the dead wood piled and the circle
here is the wet rotten smell of the river
the catfish jumping in the dark
the trees thick with cicadas, with frogs
a threnody of small life
and lightening bugs in the tall wet grass
the hole in the rain on the hilltop
and the storm that fell around us
the toad in the cemetery tree
the rainbow and the graves of soldiers
here are lovers in the dark, hasty
and the sound of the fire crackling
and laughter in the distance
railroad ties and driftwood, old tires and paper
Hosannah in the highest
praise to the fire which consumes all things
to the sanctity of desire
to the quick writhe of the worm
in an alabaster house
and a long black car
car parked with headlights and the radio on
the engine revving loud
If we carefully cultivate the life of our souls, we shall be sons and heirs of God, and shall be able to do that which now seems impossible. But this can be effected only by the drying up of all water, and the purging of heaven and earth and all men with fire
Here is the full moon of March
called worm moon
called sugar moon
called crust moon
final baleful eye of winter
called crow moon
called chaste moon
called lenten moon
heavy as a tit, loud as a trumpet
an angel with sword and scales
in waves of earth, red worms awake
from their frozen sleep and seethe,
the final frost cracking
in the red sugar maples, the sap rises
like blood, like crows in a cornfield
like bodies to the judgement
in the final house there is a child
chaste as sugar, sweeter than sap
in white lace and finery, snow and moonlight
a black leather band around her wrist
there are lillies there, and summer flowers
but she will never write her name
never say “turn around” on the threshold
to any singer come with a mouth full of sun
here is the boy, a newcomer in a strange kingdom
with poppies coiling around his ivory bones
and the throng he knows, so many I had not known
here the white wing scale of west virginia whites
the dust and asphodel, the roots of oaks like chandeliers
here the grey kingdoms
that the moon cannot stir
here the crows that do not rise,
the wood that will not bring forth flowers
these silent radios, books slowly falling to dust
though the sea boil
though the cities burn
these staid houses, unmoving in their sleep
VIII Clavis
If bread is placed in honeys and suffered to decay, ants are generated; worms are bred in the putrefying bodies of men, horses, and other animals; maggots are also developed by the decay of nuts, apples, and pears.
We are sons of the dead kingdom
the shooting range and river bottoms
here the black birds eat the seed
cast into the river-mud
the pills crushed on china plates
here the floodplain and the furrow
here the catfish barbed hell mouth gapes
floodwall and graveyard
and riverbank littered with cans and cats
with bones and rats and rags and rope
here is the boy, and the hole they will put him in
the small and private house
where he will wait for the stars to burn out
here the empty sky
here the nameless and faceless one
at the end of every story
poppies, an ear of corn, a pumpkin
here is the wheat sheaf that I painted
on the great seal of Ohio
like a charm against time
here the cracks in the paint,
the dutiful repainting of riverboats
of dead man’s faces
slow erosion of brick storefronts
and rain on headstones
and slow and soft dissolving names
what will grow from this?
Here the rain swollen river, the walls of the city
a clock that never ends
silverfish crawling in the bindings\
of a book of names
corn and beans, pumpkins
crawling from the severed head of a fish
It is not the dead who praise the Lord,
those who go down to the place of silence
IX Clavis
For the present state of things is passing away, and a new world is about to be created, and one Planet is devouring another spiritually, until only the strongest survive.
Fat worms in the dark, and the coil of green shoots
sprouts from beans in a mason jar under the sink
from the boys open mouth in his grave
each blue tooth, a pill, a tombstone
a seed saved against the frost
say his mouth is a final song, a tree
and the pale roots coil like snakes around the stone of his stilled heart
and the black birds sing in the branches
to the greasy mirror of the moon
who spits the cold and borrowed fire
upon the graveyard mud and riverbottom earth
say we are all crowned with the black birds of our deaths
the ka-bird, with its human head
twin crows, thought and memory
golden sepent, mirror-moon
and mercury switch, electric and silent
to bring the frozen fire of light alive
let there be light, fluorescent and cold as coroner’s table
and the black pot of soil in the closet
the spindly pot plant,
pale and subterannean as a sewer alligator
let the poppies grow from his bones
let his grave be a riot of flowers
X Clavis
The work does not actually take place in the Bath of St. Mary, in horse- dung, in ashes, or in sand, but the grades and regimen of the fire proceed after the degrees which are represented by these.
Grades and regimen of fire,
Here the dead fire of the sun, a parcel mailed
with no forwarding address,
the cracked mirror of the worm moon
and the broken, backwards-record image
of a forgotten day, silver on curling paper
dead light of dead days
here the shimmer of mercury
fluid, unstable ampule wired in the thermostat switch
in glass, boiling with fever
here is the dead fire locked
in the dead tree’s branches, hoarded days
shored against the coming of the saints and seals
the dead tree ripped down on the riverbanks\
and cast into the blaze
to leap through, to dance widdershins about
matter , neither created nor destroyed
a wave collapsing into a particle
endless refraction of the cosmic fire
here is the tree, compressed beneath time and stone to decay
and here the gas, siphoned from the bones of the earth
here is blue fire and the spark of a wheel
here is the contained fire of the black oldsmobile
forever exploding to drive the piston,
to charge the batteries, the headlamps
the radio singing out over the river
waves collapsing in aether,
a tangle of worms and mud beneath the moon
here is the magma, boiling,
beneath the silent kingdoms and bones and oil
of the earth, the deepest blind worm rooting
cannot find this secret fire
XI Clavis
There lived in the East a gilded knight, named Orpheus, who was possessed of immense wealth, and had everything that heart can wish. He had taken to wife his own sister, Euridice, who did not, however, bear him any children. This he regarded as the punishment of his sin in having wedded his own sister, and was instant in prayer to God both by day and by night, that the curse might be taken from him.
Consider Orpheus come down the winding stair
to the grey kingdom
with the songs that the sun taught him
rattling in his mouth like blue teeth
and his inconsolable sorrow a moon in his throat
and Persphone pale as a maggot on a basalt throne
smiling to hear him sing
and his sister wife, grey as ashes
and shrouds, in the asphodel and wing scale dust
Consider the Satyr, and his leering,
his jutting horns and stink
and the cold small snake of death
and how it coiled in the ribcage of Eurydice
even as she heard him sing
and who it was, that said
“turn around”,
and how he did, and she was wed forever to the dark
and how the Maenads tore him piece from piece
the broken singer with the sun in his throat
and they, drunk with a river of black wine
staining their teeth, with pelts of beasts
and ivy and thyrsus and bloody, bloody hands
danced beneath the moon
XII Clavis
O principle of the prime principle, consider the end!
Consider the end.
The shuttered shops, the boarded bars
in the dead town it is always twilight
always a false dawn over the hilltop
and the sulphur light of the street lights
fizzles and pops
threnody of cicadas in the lightening struck tree
the furnace glowing molten
the third shift workers filing out
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night;
Here is the shade of the dead boy
who sits on my bedside, a picture in his hand
in the land between sleeping and waking
in the border countries of hell
here is the sap and words that come from the broken tree
the flowering of mercury
nor for the arrow that flieth by day;
In time of war
the earth belongs to the rats, the fat crows
the company followers the cooks, the blacksmiths
here is the host of angels, encamped in the cloudbank
and the ragged whores and shoeshine boys
that follow every army
scales and measure and ration and want
nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
In groups of no more than ten
in our hoarded houses
to the glass windows that hum and whir
sing now the litany of plague
o sun o moon o dying earth
nor the calamity that destroys at noon.
The worm waking moon goes dying
like the countless boys in the ground
and the sun is a merciless eye of witness
we are pale as worms in earth
and the wolf, alone, enthroned
a leaden crown
For the day of his wrath has come, and who can stand against it?
the pale kings devoured by worms
