The Magic Mountain

I am not to be deceived

by the albino maiden

Who gave me her ring

in the knowledge of forms

as yet unformed

of nameless upwelling impulses

am not to be deceived

by the dry sky

over mountains

Nor by the stillness

its empty peace

Romantic poets and artists sought out such scenery

Regarding the mountains as

dwelling places of the spirit

Fixing ascendency to their peaks

Yearning to their uprising thrust

For the mountain has its awesome aspect

Communing with the material belly of earth

Rending down to twisted folds

of ravines and rockfalls

Where sudden movements spell danger

Where heroic gestures presage fall

Our hubris mocks shadowy places

Naming as myth the Elysian Fields and River Styx

the boatman and his accompanying hands

Would such ignorance have the face to laugh

in these matters?

Would it prove to be any preparation?

The corn tremors in the wind

Colours pulsate the fullness of flowers

in the meadow

Red bathes the river with the last

of many dying suns

The Voyage into Night

I came into this world as if in a dream

Hallucinating to the stars in the night

Dark visions of Our Lady

Holding the torch

It was frightening

To sense one's progression so

Voyaging into Night

In the dark

It is peopled by the merry-go-round kaleidoscope

Round and round go the vistas

Unfolding

A strange entertainment

To retire to between the sheets

One night came a twist

I was unreachable

Journeying alone

Sentient creature

Caught between good and evil

Their faces

Mocking my loneliness

The jerk into it

Comes suddenly

Think pleasant thoughts

Abate this restlessness

Dying is in the wrong tense

With it comes an unfolding

Too easy and too gentle

When there is no unfolding

Only it is the whiplash

I cannot recall it

Distanced as I am

Caught up in the act of living

The only unfolding