Love's Progress 8-17

(viii)

The silkworm 
in its
husk, 

the translucent
beat of a 
penitent's heart, 

a ballustrade 
overflowing 
the boundary 

of existence, its 
pupation a fever-dance, 
shedding 

skin and flesh, rippling 
like liquid metal,
searing the night.

(ix)

A humming bird 
suspended, the delicate 
point of its amber 

bill a thin straw 
of bone piping 
sugar into blood,

replacing collagen 
with syrup, lethargy 
with nectar. 

The emperor watches 
with cleaving tongue, 
distended from 

all physical reality.
Silence but for 
the hummingbird's wings; 

the great hall 
of the palace warped in 
flickering time-space.

A swift movement 
captures it 
and he grips

the small, well-filled 
body, considers 
squeezing the bird's 

sweet juices like 
a plump soft apricot 
into his mouth. 

"It heats my palm" 
he says. "Its flight 
becomes my flight; 

its gravity balances my heart 
and soul." He unfurls
be-jewelled fingers and the bird 

breaks free. The emperor's 
physician bows 
his head and writes: 

'Pipe nectar. Pipe sugar 
into blood. Replace lethargy 
with swift movement.'

(x)

Love comes to me in
the form of a snake.
Its eyes burn my senses,

engorge my diminished 
power, its tongue 
glistens and robs 

me of strength as I 
struggle to draw 
my knife. 

"Do not kill me" it says. 
The voice is that of 
an adult woman, 

sensual and clean. "Let 
me come to you" she says 
"and I will 

show you love afresh." 
The snake wraps 
itself around 

my leg, warms me, 
soothing with the 
sound of its 

spitting tongue. We anchor 
and my knife falls 
as I accept her kiss.

(xi)

The ritual of impregnation
empty and ethereal, 
scheduled for a new moon.
 
His desire is for 
a queen of silk
her wings to enfold - 

a moth-queen 
to mount and worship. 
The emperor awaits in his 

perfumed chamber 
as his youngest wife is
washed, confirmed,
 
chalked, delivered to him. 
The silk garment 
that covers her 

is removed, laid 
before his feet
to gather and scent. 

She is held and he watches 
this with a close eye
as the shaman invokes 

the mother of sky 
and forest. His wife remains 
silent, aloof, stern 

even, unlike others 
who struggle and are dismissed.
And when the physician 

inserts the worm
she does not scream this young
wife of his, but endures 

with moth-eyes that 
seem to him already partially 
formed. New spirits 

are called, this time 
the spirits of 
the fathers. They will 

entice the worm to travel 
deep inside her 
virgin womb. And when 

it is done the emperor 
offers up himself - 
shedding his own robe

bearing liquid silk 
that will mark 
his imprint,

the silver wings 
she will grow
stamped by a royal cipher.

(xii)

The river at night - 
a creek of swelling pearls. 
I taste warm succulent wine,

hear a thunderous drum 
of hooves casting 
a shadow across 

our rosy hemosphere, 
the un-earthly 
hooves of the chthonic 

solar-lion berating us 
like a nest of 
screetching owls.

It is a signal - a warning 
foretold - of tar, fetters 
and dust 

herding the true believers 
towards the expanding city 
and blazing night. 

We are prisoners of the word,
ambushed, snared and manacled 
by hatred's unrefined elements. 

Night engulfs us. Night cools 
our blood. Night has stolen 
ambrosial love.

(xiii)

The Queen of Silk 
is housed in a tower 
of glass. 

On the twelfth day
the physician peers 
through a fractured

telescope. Yes, 
she is changing, 
he says, 

like a nymph bursting 
through glycerine, 
cocooned 

within her woven gown
singing the siren 
songs

of her new species,
attuned to 
every sphere.

(xiv)

She has become 
his Moth-Queen.
The physician unlocks 

the glass door
and the emperor 
sees her  

magnificent wings 
that clap and
stir the air. 

Her hair, once entwined, 
is now transformed 
into moth-stubble. 

The hands that he 
held have now dissolved 
from her grasp.

"My Queen" he says, 
and notices her flesh 
withered beyond repair. 

"Bow your head and be humble.
Do not be expectant 
in the eternal 

age of non-liberty." 
Her eyes burn and her black 
moth-tongue melts. 

"Love has been cast into the unknown" 
she whispers: "Now I too 
will feast on love." 

(xv)

Look - I am hooded and blind, 
cast adrift in my love's
ferryboat

anchored now by the 
hollow leg of the
Tree-Man.

The heat of darkness
boils the slurried river,
the sharpened

blades induce the
innocent to screams. I hear
my love call

from Satan's burning city.
I recall her softness, her sweetness
and pull the hood tight.

(xvi)

At first light, alone 
in the forest,
he wakes and sees 

a woodcutter
cutting 
tall pines.

The band-saw is red -
though not with blood, 
with sap -

and steam-dust rises 
from the cutter's neck, 
from his feet,

from the top 
of his 
beenie-clad head.

When he stops 
to rest
the forest falls silent.

No screams from 
these proud trees. 
Stoic in death 

they offer themselves 
without so much 
as a faint rustle, 

stand tall until 
that moment
when they are 

spliced, dispatched
at the shins, 
and fall.

The cutter pauses, 
wipes his brow with a glove,
the slow unripe crack 

at the base of the trunk 
like kitten-bone.
He drags the trimmed 

and butchered carcasses 
through the forest to 
his shack by the lake.

Later he'll cut some more, 
re-shape wood into coffins, 
instruments of torture,

sell to Satan's outriders
in the dark city beyond.
At night, when his wife 

has massaged his swollen hams
and they sleep in their slatted bed, 
the lake comes alive.

Newly-hatched damsonflys
wrestle free from crystal 
skins, shake themselves, 

unfold their wings, 
attune virgin senses 
to the dark.

The boy waits and listens: 
they sing a buzz-song 
in the reeds - 

a concerto, a lament - 
to fallen trees and for a lost father's 
dust-smitten soul.

(xvii)

The light of earth.
The aether 
of darkness.

A dragonfly breaks
out of its sugary-jacket -
a dazzling red goddess

waking from 
her winter 
sleep.

She shakes out 
her bed, scatters 
glycerine on her pillow

meets with 
the great censer air, 
spreads her magnificent wings - 

a prism transforming 
water into wine.
She flys 

from her glittering 
pool and annoints two 
passers by -

a spring lady and
her willow man 
out worshipping

the mid-day sun. 
The goddess dances 
between them, 

gives thanks 
to her sister Artemis, 
loops her bright body -

the scented vial -
watches the spring lady 
lay herself down

laughing in the long grass, 
taste atom-seed
and begin to grow.