Alchemisland

Mass to grove gods given in the deep motte, ashes impressed onto the brow and chest in blessing

Twisting trees like matted hair on a woodwose breast, the sacred whore undressing

The crown-conferring horse is led into a storm of golden confetti

Her setting mimics that of a horse inviting, a cover of shear netting

Preserves the horse’s fantasy that he is getting

His fill of the broodmare, upsetting

Scenes but such sights though obscene were oft seen

In these parts, these distant gelid climes where arts

Lost, perhaps fortunately, were practiced at human cost, imparting

Wisdom which should never be sought, the blooddrunk manner of dark gods, farting

Prayers parps his posterior kiss red lips the red arse the red hand of the Ulster lads

Presaged so much of what came later in those lands

Hands to measure a horse

Whores to pleasure that horse

Pause to worship that horse

Plans to torture that horse

Knife forced into belly, ground frosted with gore

The whore will foster his foals, she groans to her feet from the sticky floor

Nine months in darkness inside the hilltop temple, her body will not endure

The pain of delivery, already she is badly injured, her body will malform

As the foal foetus forms in a foreign womb, her torn canals will bare forth an equine lord

A man with the fleetness and foaming fury of a horse, lord of the royal force, decider of our laws

The King on his knees greedily consuming a horse’s entrails

The rite entails the consumption of a horse from tip to tail

A trail of horse blood like a snailway, memories of recent pain, the gain

Of slaughter, the old ways again 

What has burst forth, for the slit runs gut to jaw, steams like a forge

He gorges on fistfuls, mounds of vital mortar

His forepaws slick against the wet floors, he senses immortality

He is depravity depicted, for soon all will be vanity.

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His bloodwinged arms outstretched, his chest ichor-smeared

A beard of life’s oils pastelling his chin, he is like a fallen Valkyrie

Screaming her last victory before Valhalla, wings warped by a falchion

He is like the falcon with the hare, blood clumps his feathers

He is now like the Gods, he has raped his own innocence, his sense

Is not the reason, his essence is now that of the breeze, he is in some sense the land

He cachinnates, shakes with new hatreds, strange lusts now can be sated, he has eaten the satyr

His manhood has tickled the destrier’s innards, he has gone the way of all sinners and ridden the hyperborean blizzards, met the ancient lizards who hold clues to our origins

He speaks now to cacogens, the chariots who ride the wind, through their buckler windows lend him war-winning wonder weapons

In exchange he raises marvels many, from Derry to Kilkenny the masons make merry.

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Their advance is stayed, every inch in blood paid

They paved ancient grassways, marching ground of Gallowglass

Raven-haired bonny lass, seed of tomorrow’s hag, lashed to a post and burnt to ash

Gods of glade and Gods of mound

Fought for control of our holy ground 

Sure as the Iberian Armada drowned

Further waves would run aground

For their graves erected mounds

From their crannógs foreign sounds

Pittances of scrubland their allowance

Gorse and chalk abound thereround

Differences inside their genes but all partake of a single dream

The inner walls of solar hollows decorated with phosphenes

Lit up like a fiend’s eye at hope’s demise, the tricrowned sun gleans wisdom 

Leans like a swan neck around a damp canal beam, whizzes down

The birth canal, ignites the solar spirals, delights the solar generals

Lights Lugh’s kingdom.

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Behind the castle wall I hear capers 

They escape the city 

My apron like an old bull 

Snow blinding in sun 

In chilly April

Apricity of the day

My apprentice too pretty by far 

His hair he has grown out

Mound of his headround a goldcrown like dandelions grown out, a lion mane unrounded by sprigs and sprouts

We visit the festivities 

Rare victuals are proffered for our perusal, unusual smells highly arousing 

On cough until coffin streets chock a block with foot traffic, barefeet beggars, soon-beef and sheep

Sheets hung among flutter like streaking phantoms 

Minstrels sing heroic anthems 

Flyblown meats sweat on spits under heat, flies seated on their flanks plant eggs in the mank.