9 jan. 2018

"Spinalonga" (work in progress)

I

the lighthouse outside of Spinalonga!
  how it collapsed a moon ago, 
   or maybe many moons ago,
   not one person can remember!
      (not even the harbors remember). 

as it had fallen, lepers, those with arms left, 
 and those whose legs still worked,
  founded and tended an eden-garden 
   as weed and thistle grew out of the towerfall rubble,
and in the very middle of that garden
    the lepers erected a dolmen 
    as in honour as an epitaph, 
    in sacred remembrance
    of the mythic pharos which once stood there,
    and they spellbound it with some hokus pokus magic
    during forty days and nights of ritual, 
    as to render it a watchtower anew -
     and sometimes magic fucking works, so nowadays
     it emanates a light so strong
      that even leviathan becomes grumpy from it
       as its rays penetrate the shallower waters 
       and rouses her from the bellows, 
       a hundred-thousand fathoms beneath
        the jasmin veil of night eternities above.

II


   there was once a duchess on Spinalonga, 
   a burdened widow of remorse,  yes,
      the duke had died from dysentery
     and it is said that 
          his vomit painted beautiful paintings!
    some of them still hang in the tower stairway
  and once in this very tower had i a vision imbued by them, 
  a vision of the duchess herself:

      she was naked
      and had an ancient woman's body
      as if she had laid in a bog for centuries... 
         and also she had very long black hair
             which was kind of beautiful-
         had not her face been that of a bloated corpse,
      with eyes pushing out of their sockets,
        and her skin black as coal and leathery...
      her face was that of a sorceress
       and her heart was black as the soot of life
        and when she so opened her bewitching mouth
         a serpent came from thereout
         and was to bear speech to the lepers of the colony,
            but as one of them did not smile for her entrance,
            she changed her mind, 
               the serpent retracted throatward, 
                  and the duchess, she remained silent.
            
             she has not spoken since.

III


 the arch of lazarus hangs welcoming
  over the entrance to the brothel of the lynched children,
     and as the rotting ones pass these gates of sighs, 
     all the oubliettes beneath
     which are hidden in the bedrock all around the island
     smile in the sullen undergrowth,
    for we find in them, in the soil thereunder,
    failed but courageous heroines,
    the skeletal and obsequial remains of them,
     their tombs and their old ossuaries,
    and scratches from their nails adorn the walls of them, 
   for not a rage can outcompare that of a leprous harlot, 
   yes indeed, there is no corpse which exudes 
   a sulphur-gas of odium more so
    than the corpse of a desecrated, leprous woman. 

        may these spirits reach the angstloch 
              as to release themselves? 

  we need getting into the catacombs of Spinalonga
    as to save them! or rather, what is left of these mazeways, 
the one which is buried under an age of rubble and ruin,
 sleeping under ash and the golden pumice
  from that time when the heavens opened
      like children's mouths
       and volcanic rock poured out therefrom
and cracked and broke thunderously...

     IV

     i am it!
     this tower!  
    and i have fallen - but still
    i guard the coast with hawk's eye,
    and strike do i with beak and with claw 
    and terror shall not stop me in my tracks - if demanded! 
    and i piss also in the ocean like gods do
      with nonchalance and with bravado...
    i am i!     
     in opia
    with the devil's eye of storms
    i am locked with it
      as if punishment,
      inside it, immured into it,
      and the light i emit
 is a light that leers like a sore
   around which
the beetles crawl and the botflies swarm... 

   Spingalonga - island of death and rot:
   enthronements of human faeces,
   rotten faces of black, vile dogs,
    maschalized infant botchings,
    young girls perished in morbid marasmus,
     syringes, small plastic bags, lighters...
     the pazuzu-fever, plague of death,
        leprosy colony Spingalonga
                  welcomes all!

   like a brave new world
                  reduced
         to pieces of excrement - 
         a world where coprolith
           outvalues amber 
           and is regarded with higher aesthetic esteem,
             a scolding earth
             crisp from fire,
               scorched and burnt,
                but confused still, scared, and lonely, 
                              like a human.

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