Wild-eyed, hirsute men of old
In dark laboratories hung with smoke and fire
And musty pages
Writ-across with secrets;
Giving their life’s last breath for
kimia
For the divine transmutation
Of the ordinary stuff of earth
Into something untold;
new-born
To the universe.
Mad with the ancient chemical
Understanding that
It is all here-
Indeed, at hand-
Every needed thing-
If he could but
See
To work the crawling mystery
Of God-in-man.


And you, there, Poet,
Bare-headed and unshorn,
Creeping to your garret rooms, o’ black, unruly nights,
Chased by the same dazzled visions
Of something
More.
Solve et Coagula
For you have seen that
Words are solvent in the
Grey, snaking folds of the brain
Distilling into hands
And gut
And passion.
Paper alchemist of wind and spirit,
The same spark of eternity
In you smoldering-
Then leaping
of a moment
Into
Flame.
And
Fever.
And
Burn-

Until, with far-seeing eyes
And a preternatural
Stillness
You sit
At windows
Beneath all the falling stars.

Dreaming of that too-elusive formula
For the changing of ink and quill
And small, sharp movements of the hand
into
One true,
red-beating
immortal,
gasping
draught
from the ravishing, God-wracked vineyards
of Infinity.




© 2011 arbitrary jane

06/04/2011

Posted on 06/04/2011
Copyright © 2024 Shawnacy Perez