Chapter 4

THE GATHERING OF DEAD WOOD

GREEN ANGELLIGHTS

Green angel lights stream from the willow tree, in direct symmetrical bearing three birds are drawn to it.

In gold, soft patches of light overreach the earth, shadows trace ridges to surround each teak blown colour.

With fakir lowliness, the throb of water takes petals from the sun, shimmers its passing breath to a euphony sobbing in movement. 53 *************************************************************** EYES INSIDE

There's cadence a real movement to the worlds the gaze inside a flicker of your eyes. 54 *************************************************************** THE HYDASPES

And I, cooing in my saddle, with lost time. His weapons and horses the finest. Beloved of God, engendered fiercely for the occasion - with pin stripes and a drinking vessel of the most expert silver.

Pharaonic splendor, ingots of the heaviest gold borrowed sun bright yet so untarnished they hold up the morning sky.

Two hands encase that handsome volume - finest of imported leather and saddle soap transparent to the eye so that all might ring forth its belated vision; not be dreary earthed with brine but terse, furtive inside the gathering glade. 55 *************************************************************** SLEIGH BELLS

In fury, come the Heavens, the days, our horsebells upon a crystal sleigh. Up slowly until, the horse carriage wet and coming up the evening walk pauses; then snow before a vanished world. 56 *************************************************************** ORIFICE

To perforate in adumbration, as obviator, the sphincter muscle of intensity; then paint the world in aperture, a picture of one's mind. 57 *************************************************************** PECULIAR MORNING

As if every living thing lived, breathed its existence explained why water took the shape of a container, studied sharpened awareness of cold, broke night spots onto a peculiar morning. 58 *************************************************************** WHERE

A dark, shadow grey moth rests along the grim hue of brick, its spattered orange cream underwings scream a Halloween defiance to the bleariness of stone and city.

And before each fold of its wings, there rests beyond all the pale fire and din of a thousand slow eyed empires, feeling the seethe of their existence spent in a fidgeting cauldron where mediocrity camps with her dangerous throne. 59 *************************************************************** THE TREASURE SHIPS

Rich ornamental procession enough wealth to dazzle a Prester John, Sheba's queen, even the fawning burghers of Rothschild's domain.

Reams of it, Park Avenues in torrents down a mountain side; Eldorados, the gardens of Babylon become shimmering in the sun; this vulgar display, this sheer ostentation.

Such are the waters of the rich I now approach. Peach gold fabulous wealth. More men of substance here than all the proverbial luxury since antiquity, - talents, ingots, ducats - bars so heavily encrusted with gems the very floor boards groan with the largesse.

Never a Buddha's tooth Pierpont scheme, crown or outstretched finger did circumnavigate more treasure than this eye swelling around that one treasure chest procured. Like a ship glutting the Spanish Main - my treasure ship - she vies with me my memories Midas' gold or Krupp's iron wealth secured all of which is a ransom parleying against the crowned heads of this world. 60, 61 *************************************************************** HANNIBAL

When Hannibal mowed down Romans with elephants, his skill, his artistry, had the effect of a painter's brush.

He, scraping paint off an easel, would thrust empires down, trample Graeco - Romish influence into paint spattered dust.

He neither was aware nor knew, the Alps and Sabine allies, Capua and other Latin tribes would ruin his oath, cause Baal, the false god, to desert Punic prayers. 62 *************************************************************** THE GATHERING OF DEAD WOOD

The gathering of dead wood - driven, pinched in faces between the strain of Van Gogh's setting - had all the more realism hastening down that leaden street.

Churning sockets, burdened with the duress of suffering, the street in vigorous winter raced like a bootblack up from the river. Hedged by black stems called trees, rows of withered houses and dim bread shops propositioned rough headlights along a promenade of ice stalks and careening streetlamps.

Fast in the cold, faces were juggernauts skating treacherously over the pond of that closed city. 63