Hold yourself back before the gate
the one you knew you were
in all that smoke
the favors have all betokened
your mind which fell
of itself in time, in time
the shadowed backwards where
some fawns fell due
were but a huntsman’s tally
on your breast, and the full gamble
would be due before the wires
sang your name,
in sullen aspects all the pangs
rang homilies for forgotten land
where bells sang of seven vowels
and an iron IAO bathed all man
in guttural angels of his rune
sometimes we had bread
that was so befouled it had a being
that this Not-No-One could care for in a pew
or we’d say nominal things for scatterbrains,
“what was the sunlit spinner’s name
and how did she bend with pulchritude
her hallow victim’s wits, like a spoon
in a pumpkin, scraping seeds?”
there is but one holy name
still unknown to a few
a station of the cross in black and white
and famous angel names down a fine watershed,
less royal than fleas compared to the One water
of creator, preserver, destroyer
in Haywood County,
hidden and found.
I know this is
out of the blue,
but blue seems
an appropriate
color for hello.
