by Hal Duncan
pristine, Uroburos’s gift to whore,
green, gold or red forbidden fruit,
peeled to the crunch of chomp, sucked deep
to taste sensation, sin so sharp, so true,
turns worm in us as stomachs churn. A new
life starts and ends each summer’s day for me,
python and hustler yearning, Death, for thee.
Outside now, sandstone tenements of night
are shaped in drapes of Rembrandt’s candlelight.
A distant toll resounds, a titan’s tone
born in a bell tower, sonorous in stone,
as echoes, round a temple’s vaulted dome,
of droning rote recited from a tome
to tell the trundle of our times from womb to tomb:
All doomed, it murmurs, all are doomed. doomed. doom.
VII
I cannot rest
and dream my dreams
on warm white sands,
but I shall walk the world
until I reach the sun.
As grains of wheat held in a hand
flow streaming from a grip of stone,
so I, in time and cant, am blown
across an ancient, braver land
on winds of bone.
Come: sail the mists that bury glooms
and bind the shrouds of Easter blooms,
in frozen haar of whitest light;
unveil the dust-occluded sight.
In fear of death, the quiet saint
or sage is dying all his life.
In empires of eternal form,
he never lived, a marble bust,
in solemn air, august in strife,
inert and noble, wreathed in gilt
of autumn leaves. Beneath the sheet
his laurels wilt in summer heat.
Come: steal the golden bow, let fly
an arcane arrow in the sky,
to track Saharan desert light,
and pierce the sun with ancient night.
I cannot rest
and dream my dreams
on warm white sands,
but high and dextrous, low
and sinister, must soar.
Across the barren land they’ve tilled,
let me, I trill, be ever killed
and, on the monument they build,
carve, I shall walk the world
until I reach the sun.
VIII
When I took earth and you the eve,
when you were apple, I the snake,
when you made me, the world to wake,
did we defy, did we deceive?
Death smiles his answer: you and I,
he says, are all was ever true,
the spine and nerve of I and you;
the grave and guts will never lie.
I deal another hand. I hold
the three of wands, the chalice king,
and muse upon that tripled thing,
the slayer, sacrifice and soul,
the father, son and holy ghost
we forged to serve with words of light,
blind to the tidal surge of plight
that, in a blink, begat a host.
Behold, this captain at his hand!
Behold, the peacock angel’s pride,
the phoenix from the eagle’s side
sent out to scorch unholy land.
All libraries are Babel’s towers!
All citizens walk Sodom’s streets!
All history’s the march of feet,
and all must kneel to hawks of power!
Dogs howl communion to a crimson moon,
I think of hellhounds in a shimmering noon.
IX
Let us, my band, I said, expand
our theme, the brand on you and me
the rage, the glee, to understand
the woven strands of I and thee.
We are, they sneer, the sting of bee,
a mote in eye, a buzz of fly,
upon on his hand the bite of flea?
Well, we will see, is my reply.
Will kings comply with lord’s command?
Will thieves deny, will brides agree?
Will dirt obey his grave demand?
Will seas defy his grand decree?
And will you stand or bend a knee,
to sigh and cry before you die,
or live the lie with beggar’s plea?
Well, we will see, is my reply.
The streams run dry on poisoned land,
where stands the angel of the key,
in hailfire strafing spume and sand
as fish rot on a wormwood sea.
With end days nigh, the mountains flee.
The horsemen ride out of the sky.
Will sin defile the second tree?
Well, we will see, is my reply.
O’er gardens of the bourgeoisie
there rules a king of ulcered thigh,
Will slaves rejoice his jubilee?
Well, we will see, is my reply.
X
Now we who are
about to die,
we sons of god who swam the flood,
all hail the milkwine grail, the blood
of lamb and kid. In valour’s hall
of spitted swan, as trumpets call,
we’ll drink from truth’s immortal bowl
as confirmation of our role.
And we who are
about to die
on exile’s earth in eagle’s rite,
in our own grace of sweat, salute
with fist your majesty of might.
Your will be done; exact it now,
and wash us from your wringing hands,
as dirt of toil in stranger’s lands.
For we who are
about to die,
we saw a shape in war, a blind,
castrated wreck with cankered mind
in flail of fury, saw it lamed,
a cripple gibbering vengeance, maimed
in silver sight – a coming of age!
We saw your face the day you built the cage.
And we who are
about to die –
See how our pinioned prides ignite
on scattered sands of solar beach,
in golden burn to ashen white,
on silver scythe of lunar bleach,
as shattered stars on winds are raked,
in evenfall and morning’s wake.
And we who are
about to die,
our blood is wine, our life is grain,
our ecstasy is sanctity, our pain
is river, thundering, rain our lust!
Aye, in our streams of tears we’ll rust
all chains, all barbs, all nails that wire
the eyes, sweep vision clean of motes of mire.
For we who are
about to die
see valiant flags as veils ripped down,
see violence glory that it rides
in servitude to sorrow’s crown.
A king of tears in heaven hides
in labyrinths, from tanist’s eye,
while in his grave the millions lie.
And we who are
about to die
we scorn the law, the hidden name.
We will not play your soldier game.
We will not fall. We will not fall,
but rise in blaze of loss and call,
and fly into our births and cry
inferno, aye, incinerate your lie.
XI
You brood again, says Death, you blame
the sting of life upon your choice.
Your lips were licked to mouth my voice,
to sculpt the stars as spheres of flame.
The constellations wheel; the sun
arises in the morn and sets;
so each Platonic form begets
its end, instantiate as one.
You, devil, out of Death were born
your
chaos mere creation’s curse,
from rocking horse to rolling hearse,
to strip the truth you then adorn.
What gyres of woven world were there
without the grief of graven line
that etched in light this shape divine,
desire as answer to despair?
Oh, but this house we raised, I say,
between your hollows and my harp,
this hope of lines cut true and sharp,
and signs in place of chords of notes,
the river crossed by bridge or boat,
the city, gold as summer’s day,
and god in it – this was a grave
that soul slept in as huddled slave.
I don’t recall this god, said Death,
but all in all, I blank his face,
with mask of glory, mask of grace,
in balance with his bated breath.
This mask and pause, I asked, is all
that you recall? No sound or sight
but only this visage of white,
his breath but not the bitter call?
Well, he was all, said Death, in all,
beyond, within, and of all things.
beyond the veil, a secret king,
or so they said, as I recall.
But all in all, the great and small,
all walk with me for all their fame,
and god was just another name,
so naught of worth can I recall.
I rolled a cigarette to smoke,
and locked my gaze upon his grin.
I licked the paper, twirled it thin.
A click of flame. A puff. I spoke:
To you, I said, we’re only this,
the whorls unfurling on a draft?
Is all we loved and all we laughed
a puff from lips in parting kiss?
Is that not, all in all, enough,
to be and end attached to all?
You dream division in your fall
of soul enmeshed in brawn of stuff.
Ephemeral or eternal shape
is all the same when it’s all-in.
At end of game, I always win
the angel’s crown, the coins of ape.
Your god was just a dream of you,
a skull in clay, a mask of wax,
bull-headed harp or double axe,
a silver city, twinkling true
upon the mountains of the moon,
a million artifacts of prayer
all burned to ash adrift in air,
a shift of sand on settling dune.
XII
A tick of clock, a click, a flip of card.
Outside, the night is silken, sequin-starred.
I show a full house, aces over kings,
and gather chips, but mope on absent things.
Death takes the pack, the cards upon the baize,
harvests the royals, rounds up all the strays,
long lashes, casual as the end of all,
a smiling youth whose touch was deity’s fall.
I still recall our kiss, the madman’s face,
the mewling horror crawling, his disgrace –
but turn, remember Heaven’s empty creche,
dogs barking exodus to holy flesh.
XIII
A molotov thrown in rainbow arc,
a fusewire blown in peacock spark,
we’ve danced on quarks in danger’s zone,
and now embark for fields unknown
to stride alone, without his ark.
No moan or groan. The night is dark;
on throne of stone, his fist was stark;
but angels hark now, all intone:
I’ll take the earth.
Where moss has grown on rock and bark,
where proud trombones march in the park,
I’ve flown, a lark, on wings of bone
I’ll swim, a shark in blood. Atone?
His wrath condone? Disown my mark?
I’ll take the earth.
Hal Duncan was born in 1971, brought up in a small town in Ayrshire, and now lives in the West End of Glasgow. A member of the Glasgow SF Writers Circle, his first novel, Vellum, won the Spectrum Award and was nominated for the Crawford, the BFS Award and the World Fantasy Award. As well as the sequel, Ink, he has published two poetry collections, Sonnets for Orpheus and The Lucifer Cantos, a stand-alone novella, Escape From Hell!, and various short stories in magazines such as Fantasy, Strange Horizons and Interzone, and anthologies such as Nova Scotia, Logorrhea, and Paper Cities. He also collaborated with Scottish band Aereogramme on the song “If You Love Me, You’d Destroy Me” for the Ballads of the Book album from Chemikal Underground. His current proudest achivement however is his “gay punk Orpheus” musical, Nowhere Town, by University of Chicago Theater Group.
Table of Contents
Copyright & Credits
The Poems
Lucifer Risen
From the Fragments of Heraklitos
Wake
Sonnet 14
Sonnet 15
Sonnets for Kouroi Old and New
Sonnet 28
Sonnet 29
Amorica
Sonnet 42
Sonnet 43
Still Lives
Sonnet 56
The Rock of Carrion’s Kings
Sonnet 70
Sonnet 71
Sonnets for Orpheus
Sonnet 84
Sonnet 85
The Fiddler and the Dogs
The Lucifer Cantos
About the Author