Alchemisland

Sheets of sight-stealing snow 

A sheep’s coat covering steals the road and sense of route

Barely seen behind his coat the driver spits rudely 

Cracks his crop to break the horse unruly

Alexander hiding Bucephalus’ shadow

A single jewel kings his finger, gained unduly

Ejects starlight, the duel of sun and dew

The Holly laughing at the Oak King’s funeral, lifting the lidded casket

Lips pursed with questions never asked.

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His horse Duncan bounds through snow 

Skids on ice a skater’s slide making his slow stop outside the courthouse cum masonic lodge 

Moon looms above like a dentist’s head

Removing all the teeth which are dead

A single side of it sunlike, Selene’s somnial scythe

Claptrap of his clacking trap 

His charge a carriage fit for Cinderella’s prom passage

In confusing cold the lashes from the whip slow to vanish 

An enormous stone building with pillars, strong as a castle

He passes the driver a fiver and slinks down a side passage

Lunar light lances between legs, a rag bedragged dreg astride upturned kegs

Begs whatever he can give, gestures to a missing leg lost at Mametz 

His medal heavy chest rattles as he shakes his tin cup, Mammon

Hates it but he spares his coppers, clanking into a veteran’s coffers 

His cough is shocking, he doffs his cap and thanks captain 

Sadly, won’t be long for coffin

He crawls back to his slop slapped trough, continues to cough a lot

Hope he spends that on cough drops, know he’ll spend it topping up on laudanum and hold innards in when he coughs out lungs

Knocks thrice 

Eyes through eyepiece spy 

Discern another bride of Isis

A proud Osiris, knows Egyptians are Irish

Their fraternity stymies churlishness

Coats and hat off, he enters their church 

He stands before the lofty dome 

Like a giant shell playing seafoam

Intricate carvings the mystic’s loam 

Symbols borrowed, on loan 

From the East, return tomorrow

Or the day after, no bother old fellow

The inner lid of the dome is a creamy gold like the crops in heaven 

Bread leavens before it, many marvels are there attested sent from heaven’s breast

Eleven gems and a golden angel’s face 

How the moon carves out this holy place

Deep coffers with carved animal heads lend it strength

Gold in great store runs like a fire river along its length 

Stone raised in ode to the red heifer 

His golden haloed body medicine forever

Island of telepathic lepers severed 

From society, invisible fraternity 

Invisible college serves eternity

Indivisible from the increate, the ink riot of the unrivalled pagan bible inscribed on barks at solstice; May again 

Mary’s gain, her grace attainable

Her blue chasuble a retainer of angels

Her ageless face’s poetry prints a thousand pages, births a million sages

Her son’s abrasions are legion, his leaking lesions like cracked wine vases.