2019_1

         86 – SPINALONGA       POETRY FROM A LEPER COLONY
                   PARTS I-V
    I

the lighthouse outside Spinalonga
  how it collapsed a moon ago
   or maybe many moons ago
   not one person can remember


      (not even the harbors nor the trees remember)

as the city of the lepers had fallen,
        those with arms and hands left
           and those whose legs still retained some function
  founded and tended an Eden-garden
    where weed and thistle first grew out of the towerfall rubble
    and in the very middle of that garden
    the lepers erected  a  d o l m e n 
    as in honour, an epitaph
           in sacred and endless remembrance
    of the mythic pharos which once stood there

    they spellbound it with some hokus pokus magic
    during forty days and nights of arduous ritual-work,
    as to alchemically render it a watchtower anew -
     and sometimes apparently 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 deeps
       a hundred-thousand fathoms beneath
        the jasmin veil of night
              s w a y i n g
                 like the dark eternity
                    a b o v e .

      II

   there was once a duchess on Spinalonga
   a burdened widow of remorse    yes
       her duke had died from dysentery
         and he had left beautiful paintings
     which he had made from the the emetic eruptions
        (which is to say, his vomit)
           caused by the dysentery

    and some of them still hang in the tower stairway
  and once in this very tower had i a vision imbued by them
  and it was 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 the face of a bloated human 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 bore speech to all the lepers of the colony
            but as one of them did not smile and greet in glory the duchess,
            she changed her mind abruptly
               and the serpent retracted throatward

                  the duchess uttered not a word more
                  but only a haunting stare of death shook them

               and - she remained silent;
                        she has not spoken since

     III

 the arch of Lazarus hangs welcoming
  over the entrance to the brothel of lynched children
     and as the rotting ones pass this gateway 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 ...
   for not any wrath can outcompare the wrath of a leprous harlot

   indeed there is no corpse which exudes
   a sulphur-gas of odium more vitriolic
    than the corpse of a wronged, hurt and vengeful 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 ones which are buried under an age of rubble and ruin,
 sleeping under ash and the golden pumice
  from that forlorn time when the heavens had opened up
      like childrens' mouths
       and volcanic rock poured out therefrom
            and cracked and broke thunderously
         in a most wonderful play
                        of the gods

     IV

     i had a dream.
     i understand now:
          i am it
     this tower! the lighthouse.

    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 i am strong!
    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 which leers like a sore
   around which
      beetles crawl
         and botflies swarm
        V

   Spingalonga - island of death and rot:
     concentration camp of human refuse,
     citadel of the defeat of the human body
              fortress of failed flesh

       everywhere, rotten faces like faces of black haunting dogs,
    maschalized infant botchings are scattered like drops of rain, and
    young girls have been left in pits after their rapes and murders;
      their mothers could no longer defend their daughters
      for they themselves had perished in a morbid and self-inflicted marasmus

        the world is built out of syringes, white powders, small plastic bags
         and old lighters which do not work anymore;
     the pazuzu-fever-plague of death and suffering,
             all the molested and murdered prostitutes
                           without mothers and fathers to bury them;
              all the holy martyrs of the wrong truth
                           which fought with valour for the wrong side;
              all the betrayed resistance fighters
                            from Łódź to Lwów  to Wilno to Warszawa
                                     (peace be upon you all)
             and the wailing spectres of pained ghosts
                           over the taiga of the eastern front

        leprosy colony Spingalonga
                  welcomes all

   Spinalonga is
      like a brave new world
                 but a failed new world
                  a world reduced
         to an exhibition of dirt and of excrement -
         a world where coprolith
           outvalues amber
           and is regarded with higher aesthetic esteem

             and it has become a world
              a scolding earth
             crisp from lava and flame,
               scorched and burnt,
                but confused still,
             scared, and lonely, abject and aloof
                              indeed,
                                       like
                                          the human