Alchymic Journals Read online

  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 wondering eyes.

  Weasel. Shrew. Vulture explores liver.

  Fire. Hail. The best suborned.

  Azael. Azazel. Samael.

  Mahazael.

  TIMIDITY begs the hour.

  Birds dip and flutter, shrieks

  from the dungeon. Shrieks from the cock-loft.

  Does blazing Sol at his zenith distract the wind?

  Does he resurrect the fallen cedar?

  THIRD ballot. Osprey.

  Juventus.

  JEWS speak of safety among liberal Turks

  where Sulemain forbids persecution.

  THINGS of themselves dissolve. Equinox condemned,

  moving tongue cut out, living body burnt.

  If we appoint Jehovah our witness

  do we ratify misconduct?

  Behold the generous servant of God

  dispense absolution against victorious enormity,

  extremities bloodier than a barber-chair.

  Let the King number his grapes.

  Valefar! Pruslas!

  GRANARIES bulge. Famine regenerates. Protestant

  legion, anger foretold. Populace betrayed. />
  Lances cross, matter festers.

  Subsidies mount,

  frogs rain from clouds,

  ideas too late relinquished.

  Say this was a chance occurrence,

  to claim otherwise would argue disorder

  more onerous than indifference. Disgrace and

  iniquity stride toward us—striding with long strides.

  Chancellors stirring entrails of an ox

  register gross displacement.

  AZURE light expands,

  half-globes pried apart.

  Morenius the Adept

  sickens,

  dies.

  BATHIM!

  Loray! Johavam!

  TIMES prove full and cloudy,

  assertions startling,

  promises improbable and huge.

  SATURN ascendant,

  conflict among elements,

  growth of precious catholicon.

  Miraculous Infant swaddled in white

  conceived with the fourth quarter of one grain

  upon eight ounces of Quick-silver. And it spoke our future

  with a loud voice—Mercury standing out of flux,

  congealed like yellow wax. Five soft grains!

  But for a whirlwind that came boiling

  jagged with thunder and rage

  unification was ours.

  MINISTERS fall. Atrophy.

  Covenant. King belittled by Queen.

  Duplicitous heir consumed.

  Anubis. Cerastes.

  Fifth vessel boils.

  SILVER taste bespeaks treachery,

  nothing lacks it. Deputies quarrel.

  Jester stricken. Resident bodies

  exude monkshood. Nightshade.

  Banewort. Death camass.

  Hellebore.

  Upas.

  Greyana. Fox-glove.

  Androgyne. Ostrich. Wild Goose.

  AUTUMN ripens along the hedgerow.

  Aged Lion prances, gold in maceration.

  Red sub-serves the second,

  white is third. Interior ferment.

  Chymistry gains without,

  alchymistry within.

  ONE door closes, another opens.

  Gilded Peacock screams at dawn.

  REGENT bends to his devotion. Sealed epistle

  divulges the malevolent nature of man.

  Metallic seeds rankle, putrefy,

  spiral toward conjunction—progression

  followed by retrogression. Gold simmers heavily.

  Vermin flee a body that is damned,

  courtiers disdain a riddle.

  DOOMED Prince separated from castellan

  mews and frets. Oxen do not love their butcher,

  fishes the fisherman. Twelve ducats assuage foolish Guard.

  If gold speaks, other tongues fall silent.

  Roman slaves wear iron rings.

  White Castle rots.

  ANIMUS of our deity casts forth his shadow.

  Aliment changes to blood, truth born to adversity.

  Long-winged hawk rises whistling

  from its master’s fist.

  We walk a path without turning.

  LETTER intercepted. Partridge!

  Harbinger of catastrophe.

  FOURTH ballot.

  FORÄU! Chorion! Gyascutus astride mephitic wind.

  Crocodile dancing on air. Perseid

  bound to the stake.

  JESTER escapes!

  ANTI-CHRIST to arrive on horseback

  disguised as a merchant dressed with scales,

  dressed with a long fur coat. Or he comes prancing—

  obsequiously bowing—senescent actor liquid in rhetoric

  exclaiming and prophesying to serve himself

  weak principalities.

  HONOR fled from sacred places,

  sellers and buyers infest the temple.

  Arrogance prevails, transmutes.

  AMBASSADORS assert infallibility.

  Imperator orders cookies baked to his likeness.

  What draws the moving pendulum aside?

  AIR to water,

  water to earth. Athanor

  yields brimstone and orpiment

  decocted from bowels of the unclean. Corruption

  precipitates. Darkness reinstated.

  LUNA welcomes Aries, chymists labor. Metal albifies.

  Blind Lamb seeks inspiration after his heart.

  Serpent writhes in jaws of Leucrocuta—

  twelfth key. Valentinus says no more.

  Spirit vitrifies ninth vessel,

  communion disturbed.

  LET verities be subject to observation,

  let one hand grasp the flame.

  Does not the swift glance of a lynx

  penetrate walls? Are not tides inextricably

  buckled to the moon? Is not a mirror darkened

  if it reflects a dishonest face?

  CLOCK chimes,

  morning slants to the sea.

  Clouds rush westward, vines withdraw,

  elements converge. Yellow fire above, adverse

  and darkling atoms. Mercurius born.

  Currus triumphalis antimonii!

  SULPHUR submits to gold. Deceit. Complicity.

  Tyranny persists, misery coagulates.

  Cockerel atop dung-heap beats his wings.

  What insect crawls best? Jeptha—

  that which bites the deadliest. Conscience

  a pebble tumbling in currents.

  FIVE hanged. Rebis. Tincar.

  Zaaph. Indrademic Stone. Comerisson.

  Imperator like a snake warns of his coming.

  Zahau prescribes deadly bolus.

  Corno! Flute!

  MAGISTERIAL features anointed

  with honey and milk. Bodies fall to earth

  out of their appetite for rest.

  Privileged lips taste soil.

  For every subsultus

  Probatum.

  VIVIFIED with flame

  the Son strides forth armed

  as warrior. Dragon avoids light,

  darts among crevices.

  MAN of Copper gives. Quick-silver denies,

  watery substance accepts. Things interweave to separate

  afresh. Thunderclap. Wild Goose ensnared, struggles,

  forces mingle to combine. What was moist

  withers, blossoming late. Omens

  distend at the altar.

  BEWARE the sharpened feather of a bird,

  beware the tongue’s thin leaf.

  YESTERDAY shakes upon its foundation.

  Sheep with boneless legs conceived at Nuremberg.

  In Krakow a chicken with two beaks. Sanguine crosses

  emerge from clouds over Delft. White faces in hollow log.

  Pelican resuscitated after death. Mistrust gathers,

  nations rave. Time waits at the door.

  JEHOVAH is equitable but fierce.

  Adepts welcome initiates.

  Euphrates. Baurach.

  Favonius.

  PLUMED helmet. Nightwatch.

  BEARDED atheling embraces Monkey. Crone

  depends upon her staff. Hog. Owl. Black Cape.

  Hook and Sickle. Banewort. Eclegm. What is,

  or was, devoured by Jackal. Novices

  whisper, gesticulate.

  Subordinates bow,

  mutter agreement. Toarech.

  Colchotar. Jester attends funeral train.

  APOSTATE world drifts, gathering waste. Rook.

  Knight. Bishop. Pawn. Presiding forces

  advance. Gall and deprivation.

  Horror and a mad noise.

  Lucifuge! Rofocale!

  Iehous!

  WATER trickles from rotted oak,

  soldiers behead multitudes,

  sects encouraged.

  Dissension,

  swirling discord.

  Crows hop toward carcass,

  sycophants applaud.

  Gallows burn.


  CONSPIRATORS disperse, tide

  encroaching.

  HOW should a despot know humanity

  except he taste its blood?

  HOOKED beak of eagle signifies death,

  glorious wings out-stretched

  equal apotheosis.

  DAWN. Church bells. Shrovetide.

  Mouse turd. Cat skull. Leg of wild dog.

  Kerotakis. Bellows. Tongs.

  Crumbled parchment.

  Blighted fruit.

  TEMPEST afflicts macrocosm—rain-spout,

  fire, lightning. Colic, spasm,

  fever, ague and dropsy afflict microcosm.

  Nux vomica the panpharmacon.

  For imperial madness

  no restorative.

  BETIS! Mother of Science stands forth.

  Revelations unwanted, loathsome.

  PHILOSOPHIES, religions,

  histories, poesies,

  fables and art proceed from Saturn.

  Prophecies in Fourth Monarchy,

  summit of truth.

  SAVAGE events predict their course.

  Blood of the oppressed stains church timbers at York. Cockerels flutter in the sky above Amsterdam preceded by horrific explosions. Angels wield fiery axes over Budapest. Albino ravens on streets of Geneva attack carriages. Gibbering nuns of Saint Agnes deliver mute hunchbacks. Fountain erupts at Leipzig, rages beyond control. Nothing occurs by chance.

  MERCURIC cloud above Polish castle.

  Scythes break, lepers moan.

  Spiders hurry across the wall.

  Rats awake. Ships wallow, founder.

  Cygnet dies. Masses unburied.

  Comet trails glistening particles.

  Meteor scarifies Andromeda.

  Sheep discover the taste of men.

  BLIND woman sees fire in valley.

  ANTIMONY deployed without intervention

  coagulates, dissolves, albifies,

  proceeding out of yellow,

  culminating in black.

  Clasyabolas!

  Abigar!

  FLUID surges, froths toward the rim of a universe

  where mirage begins. Hemispheres unite.

  Three suns congregate. Antaeus.

  Arch of Heaven convulsed. Alien matter.

  Sulphur obscures fifth vessel,

  reduction of two by six.

  RAMPANT Lion enters

  escorted by apprentices.

  Scorpion. White ash.

  Causes age. Disintegration.

  THOSE that study kabbalistic books,