The hollow truth carried on the wind
Budding asphodels wilted upon the pyre of paradise
Erst the rusted gates of Heaven
Deleing corrupt realm deliverance salting
The rivers of Eden,
Ananta, contemner of dawn
Stealing Levannah breaking Sol.
Without brethren kith, treading the tide
Of redemption thitherto
A tear in the fabric of the universe
Another drop in the ocean aflame
So that that fire humanity could be set
Broken vessels as like sunken ships
Eclipsing their own elan;
Fraying equilibrium averred officers of Hell
No more angels standing yet ranked still
In offices most high despairing
Purities ruination conjunctively
As with the same stride sought in
Pitched battle- touchable caste
Derelict of kin.




ELEETE J MUIR

Sunset is a washwoman's stream of rubia dyes
And the crushed scales from the Kermes insect,
While the loosened garments of life slide
Over the ancient liquidity of the hills rolling
As the mountains rolling as the seas rolling
As the clouds rolling as the graves rolling
Like eyes rolling back to sleep.

I am pressed for lullaby,
Not the pillow-clap of thunder or the ether songs of Persephone,
Biding by her asphodels with icen fingers from plum-colored hell.

But press my ear in my mother’s lap of ancient sun,
Of peplos and himation and stola,
And listen to the vines and bunched grapes
And all of heaven sink in its commodiousness.

Press my ear to the sun-fed heart that flows
To the furthest span of the cloth-seas of man and
The solemn songings of the ever-deepening sky.
My mother all along smoothing out the wrinkled sheet of sunlight.

A freak and fruitful flower
I twirled in a frantic field of dandelions
The roots felt like the bald skin crawling on my bones
as they ****** the sunlight off of the structure of my stems
With the wisdom that the asphodels would find out
About the moment I planted myself in a hurricane last summer
He asked me to stay until the lilies grew back
Then his garden began to grow inside of me
during the spring time, and I think I must have drowned
Or maybe it was Autumn, when I found my piece of mind
I sat still long enough to allow myself to stay
If I refused to swallow the worms who ******* my tongue
If I was pure enough to drink the poison out of my vines
In a diligent essence of dignity, I might have tried
but in a clear perception of reality, I realized
I would always remain
A freak and fruitful flower
Same as I was, same as I ever would be.

In sleep I dream, illusions of being awake
From the first moment to the last, of their plot.
Of it being perfect to it becoming perfection;
Eden in its own serenity- chaos,
Eden in its own confusion- bliss.
Anger clouded by love,
Passion pervaded with bitterness;
The fruitfulness of creation, their desire to destroy.
Pandemonium throughout millenniums,
The reckoning of reason throughout the centuries.
Sifting through thoughts, riding the zephyr of forgotten memories.
The taste of oceanic air, induces thee
The scent of roses upon thy skin reduces me!
The autylosis of flesh in the wilderness,
An arbituar, a crematorium- my garden.
Eden all decaying; seen, smelt and felt
Yet I still recall
Remembering fields of Asphodels
And a dream of a flower that too long ago was our ancient emblem,
Somewhere inside I am touched by this flower
And my relentless dream to feel again, what was
Before the death of Heaven.
Heaven before the conflagration; Heaven before the stench,
A Heaven of basking in fields.
Yet I am null and void of what is,
Null and void of emotion and what was
As that Heaven still subsides in me.
Elysium, the beautiful abode of the after world
Elysium with fields of sepulchre,
A Heaven of sceptre carrying angels
A recollection of a deadly nightmare
A recollection of a Heaven with Asphodel's;
The Heaven that once existed
A Heaven of which I do dream;
The Heaven of which I originally inhabited,
The Elysium in which Heaven and Hell co-existed
Harmoniously.



Eleete J Muir 1998

[PLOT

                 on the green / Cemetery Row]

A stroll

through Carthage stones...



Gargoyles in grey gloamings

of Autumns

of Winters

of the remains of days

the done-buried

keep secret in rigor mortis  

kiss



the grave

pushing up daisies, the cherished

our cherubs below tombstones

there lays

In green tarmac flights

On crucifix runways




Mausoleums with eyes

of pyramids and storms

house the ravens watching ghosts

from above just ants below,

beneath undulating cotton lakes

Upon the soil and worms and

souls


           mausoleums...


As granite angels mime

upward in prayer

waiting in the weight of the lifeless

wake

    white marbled expressions

consternation

    of devil may care

None for statues or halos

they're capture in boxes,

coffins / all inmates

                                The American gothic gallows


Caustic the silences

once stories of beams of light

Such lives afire

now mere half paragraphs

in respite /

In unforgiven mires


[On a plot of green

in cemetery row...]


Gargoyles in the mist

these arrested flights

of wish dismissed

of effulgent life


through the spindle of an hourglass

spider-webs of fog

where I share my path

Here the haunted besides (roaming)

a land of quietude

                 futures devoid yet still turning

The cyclic times

The unlearned

dreaded cold below


[On a plot of green, Cemetery row...]


Rest will happen

but my spirit is a phoenix

Great flocks of birds


Asphodels


Whilst

taking a stroll...

Past plots of green,

        In cemetery row


How such silences scream :

         the fallen :

death's blanket of snow.


[Carnage. &. Stone.]

you drink from your tall glasses, a toast to lives you barely touched.

we do not care for the river of words that rush from your mouth.

we have no use for eulogies underground.

only what you sow you can reap, your nothingness begets nothingness.

we who lay among the roots

do not see the cyanotype sky behind your rouged liquors.

we look below for asphodels to sate a hunger that has no pulse or palate.

Lethe consumes our memories from seeping water.

we talk to shadows without light. we do not bear the stains of summer.

there is no loss when there's nothing to keep.

we who lay among roots

know who we are when separated from you.

your draughts of grenadine are no more than a euphemism

for how we breathe the crimson seeds that keep us under.

i can hear a fraternization
  of doors that loutishly slam repeatedly:
just another instance leaping out of reason
   and lunging in on impulse;
wrapped in the heat of leaving, all your words
     scatter on the floor like white, mangled asphodels.

one hairbreadth heave and a cutting glance
  at space and it seemed to have bled carnations
  pried open, dissected, obscured, mutilated by birds.
bags drop like H-bomb. displaced equanimity somewhere
   between blame    and        accurate   silence:
in an instant   i believed   that   I am that sudden   word
       of  reprisal.

    there’s no   getting   even,   still   halves are separately
       wholes   to   themselves,   intact,   further apart,
         breathing and gashing    the   air.

Lover, this fear, it swallows me whole
Lover, this fear, is taking its toll
It’s pooling between
My stomach
My spleen
Asphodels made smears of white in
the green
Sighs of the grass as my feet
gently kills it
This heart beating quick till His hand gently stills it
The stillness, fulfillment that’s
Peaceful and smothering
suffering won’t matter when
you realize it’s
Nothing
I look to my lover and see only shade
I’m looking for you
As your face slowly fades
From my mind, from memory
It’s all fading out

Here is how we turn our youth / into a bachicc bath / of everything except our own blood /

taking all the things we should love / to make us good and right / if we could be like the sunrise that forgot the midday heat / but we turn them / jokes that don’t sound quite like sadness / no bitter overripe emotion / because it’s all about the fun / running through the asphodels /

next make promises to no one but yourself / the only promise made is / never written down / kept as guilty experiments / the promise of consistency / but none of us are made of substance / and breaking is our vice / because you have to slither in and out of the unbearable child / your mother doesn’t even know she has /

that’s the third thing / you turn everyone else around you / into sidebar players / who cannot see the stage / this way you won’t be quite so guilty about the sacrifice / that isn’t even what your gods ever wanted / all foul blooded and human taint /

there is no *** in the forest anymore / early adolescent memories created wild so barbaric / it’s thrown up three times and the taste / on teeth is so disgusting / it can’t help smiling like a victor still in the ring / so far past survival it could be a metaphor / for the humanity you’ve got to get rid of / this is how we forget our old selves / in the time between someone new / it’s gory / laughing to no tempo

in mid-augusts breadth
the last gasps of doomed stars

like lions lacking breath

he is watching
as history repeats itself;
damns itself

the solipsist; the progeny
who cries under his mother's wing

the exodist
to exist
unfortunately, in shortage of sleep

where asphodels crouch
long cut from life's thicket
free from time's gouge
painless, from the thick of it

cast into tartaros
on the cape of ouranos

to fall from his ipseity
so long was serendipity

his father's testament;
the panegyric on death

his debt, his deficit
of what he is bereft

summer feet cross the border
to touch the winter sleet in its corner

and skin meets skin
the solipsist's gravest sin;
the sophist, where he sits,
sips on the blood of collision

more sure of "self"
than his mothers hands

the solipsist, to exist
in the shade of earth,
who inhibits

AT REST



[PLOT:
          on the green / on Cemetery Row]

A stroll
through Carthage stones.:

Gargoyles in grey gloamings
of Autumns
of Winters
of the remains of days
the done-buried
keep secret in rigor mortis  
kiss

the grave
pushing up daisies, the cherished
our cherubs below tombstones
there lays

green tarmac flights
On crucifix runways

Mausoleums with eyes
of pyramids and storms
houses the ravens watching ghosts
from above just ants below,
beneath undulating cotton lakes

Upon the soil and worms and
souls
           mausoleums...

As granite angels mime
upward in prayer
waiting in the weight of the lifeless
wake
    white marbled expressions

The consternation
    of devil may care

None for statues or with halos
the captured hearts in boxes,
coffins / the inmates /
                                Americana gothic gallows

Caustic the silences secretly speak
Life once stories of beams of light
Such vibrant lives afire
(now mere half paragraphs)
in respite /
In unforgiven mires

[On a plot of green
in cemetery row...]

Gargoyles in the mist
these arrested flights

of wish dismissed
of effulgence in life

through the spindle of an hourglass
spider-webs of fog

where I share my path
Here the haunted besides (roaming)
a land of quietude
                 futures devoid yet still turning
The cyclic times
The unlearned
The dreaded cold below
[On a plot of green, Cemetery row...]

Rest will happen
but my spirit is a phoenix

Great flocks of birds
Asphodels

Whilst
taking a stroll...
Past plots of green,
        In cemetery row
How such silences scream :
         the fallen :
death's blanket of snow.

[Carnage. &. Stone.]

[PLOT
          on the green / on Cemetery Row]

A stroll
through Carthage stones.:

Gargoyles in grey gloamings
of Autumns
of Winters
of the remains of days
the done-buried
keep secret in rigor mortis  
kiss

the grave
pushing up daisies, the cherished
our cherubs below tombstones
there lays

In green tarmac flights
On crucifix runways

Mausoleums with eyes
of pyramids and storms
houses the ravens watching ghosts
from above just ants below,
beneath undulating fog-cotton lakes

Upon the soil and worms and
souls
           mausoleums...

As granite angels mime
upward in prayer
waiting in the weight of the lifeless
wake
    white marbled expressions

The consternation
    of devil may care

None for statues or with halos
the captured hearts in boxes,
coffins / the inmates
                                American gothic
Gallows
Caustic the silences, secret speak
Life once stories of beams of light
Such vibrant lives afire
(now mere half paragraphs)
in respite / Despite
unforgiven mires

[On a plot of green
in cemetery row...]

Gargoyles in the mist
these arrested flights

of wish dismissed
of effulgent life

through the spindle of an hourglass
spider-webs of fog

where I share my path
Here the haunted besides (roaming)
a land of quietude
                 futures devoid yet still turning
The cyclic times
The unlearned
The dreaded cold below
[On a plot of green, Cemetery row...]

Rest will happen
but my spirit is a phoenix

Great flocks of birds
Asphodels

Whilst
taking a stroll...
Past plots of green,
        In cemetery row
How such silences scream :
         the fallen :
death's blanket of snow.

[Carnage. &. Stones.]