HOEKSTERS WOULD RANSACK occult chronicles for those procedures Saint John employed to benefit the impoverished and to assist the decrepit by confecting silver and gold. Disparate entities coalesce. Where one predominates the consequence shall appear elliptical, but where equilibrium prevails a circle results—as Jehovah’s hand hurled the stars into perfect courses.
MAY NOT THE close of a motion be also its beginning? Yes, since things turn upon their pattern, returning to no end other than their own. Therefore we believe in palingenesis. Avicenna, Cardanus, Averroes, Eckhartshausen, Seneca, Plato, Caspalin and others confirm the truth of this. Athanasius Kircher at the court of Queen Christina resurrected a rose from ashes.
NOW BECAUSE WE are humble biographists expending ourselves with quiet scribbling to complete the archives of inheritance let us consult that emerald attendant who swallows his tail—Ourobouros—the serpent exemplifying mystery to be devoured and melted, transfigured by dissolution from its first estate to one of inimitable gold.
LOOK! AH, WE behold some malodorous, greasy-visaged trickster disguised in a Jerusalem beard creamier than milk and a gown befitting a penniless wizard—ripped silken sleeves spangled with glittering stars with a half-moon smiling on his breast, the cowl pushed back from a face to make poor Lazarus faint. And he has brought his scrying-disk of polished cannel coal and a globe to manipulate which commands disembodied spirits until they swarm quicker than bats chattering for entrance. Now does he fill up his pelican flask half with yellow seeds that should be mothered night and day like a squatting hen warming her clutch of eggs who would hatch out golden chicks. God speed! We doubt he will usurp a throne nor surpass Midas except by the length of shaggy ears. Therefore, good passage. We cannot guess what formula he offers. With each disposition nothing travels swiftly save toward itself.
Rumors of a wandering magus conceived in heresy and mistrust that would resurrect us before the gates . . .
TIME unfurls, buried images out of joint. Souls mortgaged to grievous error. Ideals pass, titles follow. Priests withdraw, casting back morality. Ash begets ash. Truth legislated from existence. Gold thickens.
LILIES shrivel in the moat,
crops cease to flower.
Providence justifies catastrophe.
RED Prince astride White Stallion.
Mercury and Pisces conjoin.
SPIRITS bound to dead forms rise. Credulity
displaces inquiry. Reliquaries
buried in a wall.
MALVERSATION. Murder.
Archduke admires double phalanx.
Councillors applaud.
MUNICH. Verdict unsealed.
Corruption. Pravity. Famine. Mucor.
Penitents clog a muddy road to Augsburg—
gesticulating, mumbling, singing. Wafers molder.
Recidivous prophets riveled with debauchery cavort,
weeping, desecrating the book of revelations.
Hans Böheim shrieks. Vacuity embraces firmament.
Comets wander. Apparitions swarm down hollow streets.
Darkness by noon. Two suns divide, bending inward
darker than a wool-sack. Nazarites genuflect.
Manuscripts unroll drenched with blood.
Palas aron azinomas! Agla! Tagla!
CONSTELLATIONS mount, opposed armies descend.
Sister of the White Rose stumbles.
Crime in lofty places.
MONARCH appeases monstrous daughter. Battle divides,
concessions astonish. What is to come boils
unobserved. Pillage. Sword.
Foreign sails. Antiquities crumble.
Black fleet approaches, lives forfeit.
Withered grove. Stony field. Blazing village.
Janizaries defeated—hurled aside. Cattle bellow.
FIERY path, charred corpse.
Sightless peasant.
Which hand shall touch perfection?
MAJESTY hesitates, false credenda mount.
Doubt troubles cathedral. Frenzied voices trace
oracles to Zoroaster, Eleusinian mystery to Orpheus.
Loathsome fraud. Apostles gather, pretenders act,
difficulty bristles. Aged regent slumps,
gibbering. Throne aslant.
NIGHTWATCH.
Drums.
SALAMANDER. Arcturus deliberates.
Anguillae sequestered.
Terrier hanged.
DRAGON to devour luminous wings,
periods of earth bound in water. Marvel
predicts the future. Candle flares—
four fingers ignited! Beryllisticus advises.
Hand of Glory resuscitates.
FIRST ballot.
VENAL city destined to perish.
Say we do not feel cunning
with logic or wise in aspects of stars
or sublunar things. Say we do not see causes
nor observe them at their rising,
how shall we put on salvation’s garment?
Say more are damned than rescued,
is not the devil sovereign?
Theodonias! Anoor!
Amidas!
WHAT predator hears the shriek of its prey?
Priscillanus the first heretic
martyred. Cecco d’Ascoli
sacrificed to necromancy. Johannes
Mercurias da Corregio pacing the boulevards of Rome
crowned with thorns. Sabbatai Sevi unveiled
as the Messiah. Francesco Pucci
beheaded. Bloody flesh
smoulders on the Campo de’ Fiori.
Bruno immolated—wedge between his teeth.
Pico conspires to unite religion
with philosophy. Guseyn!
Abaddon! Marbas!
REVOLT in Calabria. Charity declines.
Campanella preaches. Eight less nine plus
seven angers six. Sceptered Moon
escapes, water surges.
Red Servant bows.
COZENAGE scours the earth. Deep tides
mount. What is to come reverberates emptily.
Serpents entwine. Castles for gifts. Chamberlain
opposes the polychrest. Minatory cries.
Mutable face. Orderlies prevaricate,
spirit withdraws. Destruction.
Necromantic mage.
MONGREL returns to vomit,
washed sow to mire.
MORALITY inverts. Unrest.
Disorder. Diabolic ministrants.
SECOND ballot.
ARGENT strangled.
Moon-calf jousts with authority.
GRAY Lion awakes, trembling wind.
Triune mitre flecked with blood. Nuberus.
Worms of the marrow.
STARS bend on their track,
judgments harden.
NO PAST but inhabits the mind.
Say the present is Sol, the past Sulphur,
the future Mercury. Present answers
neither past nor future. Then what is second
with respect to the third? With respect to the second
what shall be third? Quick-silver shudders
in alembic. Iscariot. Bishop recants.
Malfeasance. Obliquity.
Merlin summoned his future
to avoid the past. Kraken. Raven.
Manticore. Six upon six
upon six!
MEASURES of iniquity exceed their limit.
Shrieks of the oppressed reach unsleeping presence.
KING enfeebled by pox. Magistrate
emerging from fire rejoices at his espousal.
Wealth accumulates in Minerva’s Tower.
PHILOSOPHIC month—forty days.
Milk curdles, occult libraries open.
Palace shudders. Corpses dangle from Nuremberg Gate.
Falcon of pride aloft. Creation
ordered under Aries.
MOBS uttering plaintive cries
surround Viceroy. Quickening vapor.
Chamberlain stabbed. Regicide prepares.
Barons gamble quadrant to quadrant.
Ambassador flees Vienna.
FALLEN angels conceal cleft hooves.
Conspiracy born of conjecture. Blackness
depurates. Theurgic Stone.
Ayuperes.
WOLF devouring dog.
Imperial Guard!
TYRANT defers to sentiment. Gazelle.
Dromedary. Scribe. Silhouette. Starling.
Say promises are violated, chaos encouraged—
what should engender the Magnum Opus?
PLANETS cling to their grooves, sectarian times depart.
Fish-wives and merchants lift
