Two Fold One

(1975)

The Crystal Image
Light on Shade
Intimates
of Spring
the sweet scent

O Listen
How laughter beckons
Our Song Awakens
the Dreamer
of
Our Dream

Where were we lost?

Beware the Entrance
En-trance
Ten Thousand Betrayals
All Myriad Fantasy

Hold out your hand
Those Rings
of Power
Astonishment

Two Fold in Love
the True Edge holds

Compassion

***

Optic Nerve

(1988)

The trees on a soft winter's day
are bare tendrils reaching up to the sky
       like roots reaching into the earth
       like arteries feeding the heart.
I wish to reach into memory
       like roots reach into the earth
       like arteries feed the heart.
I am on a long journey of recollection
       into the heart space of a summer's sky
       into the silver white core of the sun
       into the spirit that looks out through the eyes
onto green fields

Image, imaging, maging

Atlantis, & the old network of lines
dragon lines between needles of stone
the earth woven with streaming light
light alive with the goddess

Athena, of the bright air, the dew & the fruitful rain
bearing on her shield the death’s head of Medusa
woven serpent power & terror, of lightning & of storms
that striking mortal sight turns flesh to stone
pierced by the light.

Medusa is earth maiden
(her tresses the vengeful gift of Athena)
slain by Perseus.
Pegasus leaps from her streaming blood
& from stones struck by the hooves of Pegasus
flow the fountains of inspiration.

Arthurian legend, Nimue is earth maiden
priestess of the Isis of Nature
& Merlin her lover is master of star lore
bound by art within the bones of the earth
time locked, holding the grail keys
that lift enchantment from the wasteland.

At the End of this World
Heaven and Earth meet and come home.

Alchemy, and in the veins of the earth
flows the enlivened mercury.
Caduceus, the physicians' staff, is symbol & herald
an enchanter's wand with serpents helical.
One is frost, the other fire
primal tension drawn on the bow of image
& released, frisson, on the web of light.

Serpents leap from my eyes
like fire from the eye of Yahweh
engraved in mid-pyramid on every greenback,
a resonance in the geometry
light moving in crystal
matrix and lattice.

The pyramid is gateway
to the imaginal powers
opening onto the sea
the womb of form
where the gods play Trumps
a Holy Alphabet, flaming
in the astral light.

Starlight is coherent
like laser light it plays
upon the subtle spinal discs
weaving the holograms of life & dream.

Pebbles drop into a garden pool
(at Ryoanji temple that time
       stones dropped into a pebble garden)
light dances on water,
patterns interlace and sparkle,
each spark a temple of light
built by the gods.

The Queen pricked her finger
& a drop of blood fell into the snow
frost and fire blended by a Saxon sorcerer
colouring the cheek of a fresh maid,
rose red and snow white
of earth and stardust
made in the image of the goddess
& spun into the whirl of stars.

Winter is crystalline, the light is sharp
the snowflakes form a lattice
where light reflects and disperses into rainbows
gleaming through tears of ice
similitudes, form resonances
of the deep world, space world
light, crystal & ice

Where does the serpent sleep in winter?
Does its tongue lie still
or flicker at the edge of thought & fork
even as I turn & spin
between images of quickening life
& those of encroaching death
a dervish whirl to an accelerating rhythm
like the wing beat of the fool hen in the bush
like the breath of our world
magneto-electrics fluxing
ten to the fortieth times per second
rapid enough to maze the fool's eye
       he who steps towards the precipice.