Mythopoesis III
By: Gareth Gransaull
Tags: Philosophy, God, Poetry, Fiction, Sonnet

Helios astride a chariot.

Scarlet Penny

Speaketh fast, o’ ruby lord,

Ere treasure ‘scape by luckless sin,

Uproot and fly your wandering horde,

To steal the fruit from loins within.

Deliverance, a sum so vast,

As precious age doth trundle by,

Thine carmine fate is writ at last,

To lead us bloodied through the sky.

Dressed in sackcloth, smeared with ash,

A seagirt soul contumely rinsed,

The baptist mouth of lies awash,

Yet sees succour in thine evince.

Pray, and greet them one by one —

Thine scarlet suckle they will not shun.

Hyperion

The sun, a flying cherub shining bright,

To flee from earthly tempest down below,

Will soar to a refulgent upward height,

And find its honeyed marvels to bestow.

Creatures, flesh and green, transcend their fate,

Through starry song and giddy meadow dance,

Beneath the sun’s hot reign o’er earthen gate,

Which guards the heavens from the mortal manse.

Between us lies his son, in conquest born,

Whose words are quick, to every bard’s delight,

This hero of the sun will sound his horn,

And to it brilliant faithfuls make their flight.

Hyperion, a radiance untold,

Shines upon us day-lit treasure gold.

Satyricon

We dance and drape with sultry pagan fawn,

Yet suffer from the dignity of fools,

In captive dreaming man walks through the dawn,

To coax the beauty of these trembling mules.

Luxurious and handsome they may be,

Yet peril haunts their every vaulting stride —

A judgement and a yearning to be free,

They run their slipshod fingers o’er our hide.

In this land where glistening wonder calls,

Upon the patient and the meekly born,

The future lies beyond those crumbling walls,

Where soulful cries find breath amid the scorn.

They laugh and shrug a sinful day away,

Content to live a life beyond dismay.

Nightshade

Oh, serene shade,

Carry me through the night!

Your amethyst pearls,

Beneath a deep green skull,

Plucked from the fibrous branch —

A poison, perfectly construed.

Hemlock, viper —

These are lesser powers.

You deliver us to tranquil beauty,

First among equals,

For all are equal in the dark.

If only the sky would fell its flocks,

Like how the earth sows death in restive spawn —

Alas, the sooty birds take flight,

To feast upon our idle carrion.

Oh, subtle shade,

Deliver me to painless slumber,

Where the oppression of the sun is masked,

By your shroud of purple night.

Take me home,

To before the womb,

When time stood still,

And blood ran black.

I have drank of the Pierian spring —

Now cast me deep into Tyrean shadow.

Brethren

When dost the runt become the boar,

And viper shed its sheath?

These are the living mysteries,

That linger far beneath.

Betwixt the stars and heaven’s glare,

The waxing moon retreats,

And carries with it rushing tides,

Which watery life entreats.

Whither these alien suns abound,

That shine with paltry glow?

In dour jest, the creatures sleep,

And ‘scape their rocks below.

Time, that vexing art we weave,

In life divers’ wills us believe.

Wholeness

What terrors lurk

Behind the deserts of affection —

A desire to be whole?

The world as will,

Divided against itself —

A desire to be whole?

We make our fatal image,

The dead things crawling in our minds,

They exalt our souls

Into the dank below.

The howls of Cerberus,

A dog called ego.

What are those immortal lineaments,

Which chase our view and circumscribe,

Our fertile imaginings?

That is our superego,

The image of the father.

God the father,

Is a ghost all along —

The haunting projection

Of our desire to be whole.

Psychopomp

A pilfered soul from sacred light,

Entombed in wretched fancy’s flight,

Can soar above the endless lie,

For heaven waits beyond the sky.

The dreams of verdant lovers pause

To seize us in their jealous claws,

Bestow a misty fortune found,

To leave us dead things on the ground.

Basilisk

She is the serpent daughter,

Labyrinthine, languid —

That shy creature,

With a spine of black,

Sinking into hellish deep.

Abreast of oceans,

Her jaw agape,

She bites into cresting waves.

Tresses of emerald weeds,

A luxuriant mane,

Trail down her scales.

Elegant mother,

Lithe and beautiful as obsidian,

Slithering through endless wake.

Masterful mistress,

Cunning of the waters,

She is the ancient mother of eels —

Maddened, corrupted,

By a tortured home.

In heavy waters,

Where light will not stay,

She finds a crepuscular manse.

Daughter of the drowned,

Queen of dim-lit death.

Lonely Eye

What do I know,

I, the obscene imitator?

I know the rhythm of words,

Not the beat of life.

Sterility, not fertility.

Stability, not virility.

I but hover

On the pasture of erasure.

A slow, grazing existence.

What lurks behind —

The bucolic nightmare?

Limitless, but lonesome.

The wandering eye,

Is but a vagrant soul,

Living its sad, lusty life.

Don’t live to serve the God

Of other people’s tragedies.

Invent your own heaven.

Friar

Barefoot, broken,

Smug self-deliverance —

Pious fellow,

Obsessed by blood and penance.

He is the shapely wanderer,

With that artful smile —

Breaker of bread,

And bringer of dread.

Flux and fire,

The portents of doom —

Unfriendly catalyst,

Thoughts vagrant, decomposed.

A menagerie of miracles,

Impresario of truths —

He is the unstable sketch,

Of an unfinished man.

Vile, repugnant,

Bound in liminal quotation.

He fears to be seen,

And thus he stands alone.

At once lordship and privy,

The maker of chains,

Slaying the dragon-seed,

Of liberty’s revolution.

Teacher of fragrant souls,

To find cheap beauty,

In the tedious din,

Of divine applause.

Sunken

Asleep he lies,

With black lips closed,

To conceal the sighs,

Of mortal woes.

Beneath the deep,

The cradle lies,

A precious mourn,

O’er ocean cries.

The hallowed march,

Toward the grave,

An infant’s crawl,

Dost cheat the brave.

The soul’s last cry,

A haunted breath,

For want of air,

Dost rest in death.

Winter’s Heart

In the frigid breeze,

Blood runs quick—

The body is anointed,

By crests of snow,

Tossed in furious skies.

The alabaster miles,

Thickets of down,

Bury the last coat of autumn,

And send the world into opaque cold.

The tepid pace,

Of a woman maligned,

Dissolves into winter,

Bearing its frozen heart.

Blinded by the glare,

She stops to smell

The desolate odour,

And rest her eyes.

The silence is loud,

Surrounding her with death.

The season betrays her,

Sending its frosty fist,

To bruise her violet face.

Her skin is torn,

Her beauty shorn.

A sullen flower —

A shiver, and a cower.