Ananda

O Bull of Heaven, Abel First-Slain, ice sky eyes

lolling tongue as your brain bleeds out clouds,

the Golden Calf and mysteries of first martyr,

Adamah’s alchemist, God’s golden boy, altar cloth.

You were not meant to live past fifteen, and how

a mother mourns, how Cain bore a grim cross,

and Seth never even knew your name. First was

the Son of Dragon Qayin, brother of fire, second was

the thick seraphic Ox, son of rain, third was boy of

golden light, Yeshua’s line.  And your parents cry,

and no mother should bury her child, and I grow

old and cold, and in Pluto’s Cave on Mount Shasta,

the Sefer Raziel hums with virgin blood, and I am

the Weeping Wailer.

Resurrection Dance

Riding through the desert of the Valley of the Shadow of Samael,

I am leather-clad King in search of my Queen’s font, Eve rides bareback

behind me, babe pressed to her breast, and we are exiles in the wastes,

sprung from harsh ground, and the book of the angel Raziel is clutched

to my back, and the dune winds blow in scorching simoom heat, Seirim

haunt the wine-laden expanses, satyr dances vengeful Cain presides over,

he the Prince of Nod, but Eve and I must ride on on our bone steeds, followed

by all the undead I have raised in this resurrection dance. I am the fallen heart

of the Sun, the rising soul of the Father, and my Cross was olive in Paradise, I

skinned myself for my bosom wife, and now she wears my purity if only to protect

her delicate skin, my Bride, my Legendarium, and my own flesh grows hard as earth.

The wounds from Heavenly War never really wore out, ridges of train tracks over

my flesh, and in every incarnation I am scourged and bleeding raw, thick scar tissue

the only marker of my commitment to shouldering Sin.  My other wives are night

howlers, Eisheth eating the Damned, Lilith sucking me dry come the witching hour,

milking my seed for her own ends, and in the evening, Eve strays to the oasis and takes

up in my twin serpent’s arms, we have a burgeoning festooned mess of love, loss, pain.

The demons tempt, the devils wail, and the angels made mortal walk on, sinful Lebanon.

We that toil and travail away carrying shining Seth to higher ground, out of despair’s

leaden valley, with harsh concave bellies, shattered glass to dance on, Adam and Eve,

we were brilliant fliers in the sky once, general and mother warrior of Heaven bright,

but you see, for these seeds of stars, this Image of God we have become, to bear fruit,

Eve and I must be entered and locked into a cycle of Sin and suffering, exile of Eden.

The Garden I tend, I am at heart a farmer, and part of me, my corpus, is High  Above,

in the rose garden at the center of the universe, carrying flowers to Myself to turn into

anointing holy oil to rain down and absolve humanity of their sins, but Samael and the

Angels of Prostitution, Eve and I, we are mouthsful of vinegar and wishful drinking.

Fermented water, bitter barley, hoppy beer. Lovedrunk, winestunk, stonesunk Hell.

Hell, Hell, I know that Well.  And so we endure, and so we ride on, finding ground that

is good to turn over with spade and ho, fructify with moonblood, work my dark curses

on any foreigner’s god that strays to our shores, and so I guide the bones, the dead, those

waiting to join the ascended at the End of Days and feel flesh and blood once more, but I

gambled away my bones long ago, and they are now in the body of the Devil’s heart:

Satan’s heart, Michael’s bones. Daughter of White and Black Pillar. Walk on, Rhiannon.

Walk on. Do not trust me when my wasp eyes burble over in madness’ flood, I am as

harsh as dry earth, what softness you have known of my love and lullabies and me

giving everything including my last rib to you is only the beginning of my sacrifice,

I tore the skin off my back for you just so you would not grow cold during a rainstorm,

and Eve, I am so old, but you two are so young, so please, bear with me and my Brother,

we are only trying

to understand

peace.

A Flower From Inside Eden

And Abel said to Seth, go my son, harvest a fruit from Eden,

the Tree of Life hangs pregnant with all the blessings God

withheld, and so fire-eyed Seth walked his father’s scorched

earth ground where no flowers or grass had bloomed in the

wake of Eden’s death march, following the trail laborious

mother Eve walked pregnant with Cain, her feet swollen with

the toil of it all.  Seth brought back three seeds from the Tree

of Life, and they sprouted into the Cedars of Lebanon, perfumed

the halls of King Solomon’s vagabond temple, provided wood for

Noah’s ark, and the sweet smell of their sap haunts the between

space of Bible and Torah and Koran, linking Yahweh, Adonai, Allah.

All these multifaceted faces of God, strung together on a necklace for

Mary.  Deborah sits in her tent, judging the deeds of the Israelites,

prophetess gone hoary.  Esther pours wine from a carafe in her newly

converted kingdom for the Sabbat.  Ruth and Naomi are each other’s

comfort in travails. Mary and Martha debate the ministry of Christ,

better to bake bread of his body or drink the wine of his blood. The

whole holy tome is a story of sisterhood and brotherhood, Leah and

Rachel, Abel, Seth, and Cain, and only the angels know what fruit will

grow from the Cedars outside the gates of Paradise – they say it will take

another eon, but this age draws to a close, and the seeds quicken, pregnant

with divinity. A woman is spinning flax in a prison cell, churning gold.

A princess sleeps in a forest of rose thorns, impenetrable fortress of her

virginal mind.  Goldilocks has taken up with Little Bear, the bed fits just

right. And Rapunzel took her hair, made a rope, and saved herself, blind

god be damned. God provides, helps those who help themselves, so when

you lose your glass slipper, brave the prince in rags, and when a frog begs

a kiss, give the kiss of Judas, and when a glass coffin is your Cross to bear,

shatter the adamant covenant with your rage at death.  Do not go kindly into

that good night, better yet, be a soldier, a Joan of Arc, a Samson, and slay, my girl.

 

Slay.

With Dew Anointed

Rusted gold at the Garden Gate.  Poison honey on his lips.  Lion’s mane hair, scars and wounds of rubies, eyes yellow owl iris, pupils a sea of black smoke.  Smoking and choking and seething with rage in the bowels of the Earth, Adam ha Kadmon is chained in the Cave of Treasures, arcane vengeful guardian of the Sefer Raziel come to claim his burning brides.  False idols fat off the land, he calls the Qadesh and Qodeshah.  Bridal whores of Heaven and Hell.  Oh how they have forgotten First Man, and thus he seeks a violent claim on their flesh.  Eve is the Sun Priestess of beaten Io gold headdress, Fire of God, with silver bowl that holds redemption, and Eisheth is Lunar Lady, smooth platinum crescent at her brow, and he raises a hand to strike us down, but we lash back, and there is a cacophony of tears and bitter fears and sour wine.  We can’t be rid of this curse, I turned my back on our marriage and took up with Satan in Hell, chose Samael and Michael and Zadkiel and Ariel-Lucifer in the end, whore of both Heaven and Hell, and Adam turned his back too, leaving me alone and starved to retreat back to the armsz of his first wife, Lilith, and all the ladies of the night – my sister Eisheth, my soothsayer Naamah, my go-go dancing Agrat.  Spider veins, fire in my womb of the Shekinah in balance with Adam’s magic of black cloak and cowl, and we are both Damned, the original Fallen, and Abel is a head-smashed blue ghost, and my proud son Cain bleeds and cries with emerald eyes as Adam calls him son of a whore, scion of Samael, no son of mine.  Seth has eyes like garnets, afire, and collier hair.  So I passed on my demon stain to the Seth line, I who had fallen, Adam who had fallen, my eyes, his skin and hair.  And then Samael dresses in oriental garb of black silk and silver shadow and does a fire dance to hold back the Beast, Adam’s madness siphons off into sapphire tears that form rivers in Hell, he says Eve, Eve, Eisheth, Eisheth, come back to me, and Lilith says pay reverence to your first husband, this First Man, for he is forgotten, and unlike you, he was not saved, charged with guarding that first Torah of the Sefer Raziel the Archangel of Secrets pressed to Adam’s bosom upon pain of Uriel’s fiery sword, and Adam’s only magical match is Samael, master of enchanters.  I dance with bells, Adam dances with doeskin drums, and in the quiet hours we rage and gnash teeth and sob and wonder, how did first love turn so bitter?  What is left after first love when your postcards are burned that you sent your lover from Paris and the Gates of Eden are shut tight on nightmares of toil, woman’s pains, working unforgiving earth for all the eons and labor.  I say death, and abandonment, and the sun rising in the forbidden East and setting in the rotting orchard of the West.  I say you can grow again, grafted from the Tree of Death to the Tree of Life, and that no one, nothing, is beyond Jonah’s whale song of salvation.

In time, the Tree bears new fruit, and Adamah, hard as earth, softens.

 

And the Garden Rotted

Apples rot in Fall, seasons turn Winter’s bone

Adam I have never met, all I remember is a

body count, dead sons and daughter, lost husband.

Satan rots, Michael weeps, God is Dead and Broken.

I wander. I walk on. I must endure. Through Heaven

and Hell, come millenia upon millenia, trickster, I chart

a path through the unknown, hurricane my heart, treasure

in my chest, and not Cain’s eyes at my breast nor Abel’s sucklings

nor Seth’s divine providence nor God’s burning sword stabbing me

straight through, that first time I was betrayed, that third time, the millionth

time the men failed, from the thrones in the abyss and starry kingdom, I birthed

new palaces, and I carried my burden, and I wept, but I was a warrior, and I bled gold.