Wednesday, April 8, 2015

7/30 2015

 MARBAS.--

The fifth Spirit is Marbas. He is a Great President, and appeareth at first in the form of a Great Lion, but afterwards, at the request of the Master, he putteth on Human Shape. He answereth truly of things Hidden or Secret. He causeth Diseases and cureth them. Again, he giveth great Wisdom and Knowledge in Mechanical Arts; and can change men into other shapes. He governeth 36 Legions of Spirits. And his Seal is this, which is to be worn as aforesaid.

The engines of Hell and East Chicago
melt steel, stones, slag
without rest.
shower Sulpher, Benzene, Hexane
secret apothecaries of the virulent air

The mouthless doctors rain radiation
on the tubers and growths
of that terrible forest
this is called curing
like meat hung in smoke

these subtle engines,
lenses and knives
this unlight and it's images
hellebore and henbane

to cease the blossoming of black threads
in the blood, unravel the knot
tied by the malicious, the greedy
the bezoar stones,
the jewels from the toad's head.
This terrible garden

in the sterile rooms, they cut away
the heart,the lungs, the rotten Pith
the opening of the mouth
is called healing

time is a physician, and death.

what shapes  will we inhabit
when we have been shaped,
by what they have cut away,
by the bone and sinew we have lost
the blood and marrow freely given
what faces we will wear?

walking head upright, 
in the marshes
the going forth by day

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