Alchemisland

Rocks fisted into the sun at the universe’s fizzing out

Planets spinning out of orbit like lubed snooker balls

Great avian shrines cloistered in the noisome House of Amenti

West of Kemet the domain of Tjemehu, later Libya

Funeral shroud hued soils floo the black land of the Pharaohs

Black rites enacted in the hidden pyramids, children taken like abacted cattle

Slung over the backs of bactrian camels and carried to bleak Mendes Djedet west of Imau

Actors in old passions, flashes foretold the birth of two pharaohs, only one may sit the throne

The victor must slit the throat of his brother, smother himself in the blood of the sacred goat, to become the lictor of the undying sun

God wept onto his raiment, his angels depressed, death claims myriads

Cain falls upon Abel again, the blade in the hand capable, his brother unable to sustain the other’s force is splayed upon the coarse earth the bitten apple has cursed them too

The pooling blood sinks down into the soil, waking the long-coiled worm

All Abel’s toiling in the soil, his royal lineage, failed to bandage his gashes, or banish his anguish

Such damage sustained his face, shredded portrait of grace

Haste of hate evident in the frenzied method, the furthest from Yesod move Eastward away from Eden which shrinks like a struck deer in the rearview on a purple evening like the sky is dreaming

Dawn wakes screaming, his streaked flesh gleams, flagons filled from the sanguine shedding but he emerges merged with the deceased, a twin-pieced emperor of Egypt 

Dread mohel swinging a querent’s sigil shaped shotel

Takes more than this bris requires

Shem and Japeth shamed, curse of Ham

He is impaled by sun rays, dazed by horizon-hazing heat

Thirst only the whole of the Nile slakes, his feet scrape traffic-weathered steps, goatskins bleating no more, an urging urgent drumbeat, steps slicked with slave blood as pave roads Hadean, faces like fiends they praise on knees, surcease of plagues seven, entry unto heaven

Bile rises from his empty maw ten nights fasting, by oath no oat may pass his lips until the growth of one or another is stowed forever

Burial of a stooped child, his extracted mind confined to a graven vial, the silenced potential of the second emperor, his funeral pyre climbs high, armoured men with shaved heads and gold-leafed spearheads file in behind the violent glare of his gilded coffin, his eminence is pleasantly expounded upon, blessings to the Gods, stated longing for his return

We return you the priests beseech, sand as on a vast beach they intern him beneath

Artificers tasked with the fashioning of objects everlasting, they cast molds equal almost to reality and band them with glimmering diamonds, jacinths, every signifier of vanity resplendent for his journey interplentary

Sober-faced, the muddy-handed priests wail propitiations to snapjaw Sobek, he is elated by death in every shape and only the blood of many poured into the Nile will permit the dead entry

The tithe of the sentry of the dead, the tide of the century solely in blood, a brineless flood nonetheless alluvial

Flyblown meat fed to the Father of Faiyu, his facesake haunt the Bayou where vampires chew through the blood-ejecting necks of prudes.

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All manner of treats line his vast coffin, that he might be entreated to the long pleasures of eternity as he journeys through the spheres 

Streets thronged with cheerers waving devices, frightfuls dins as blight times of great festival, merriment as Memphis had not seen since the raising of the ram-headed sphinxes 

The fountain water clear as the beauty of Isis, the white-cloaked lord stops amongst his roses, stoops to the lip, cups his hand full of liquid, his flesh a philtre, droplets filter out between his fingers, brings it to his lips and drinks

His creamy habit sinks in wavelike folds, old golds glint greater somehow

Hence from here he goes, looking upon his empire spanning the lands to either horizon

Golden dyads, the golden hands of vast statues casting precious shadows on bronze sand

His hand the hand of man he fans to stare at the burning eye of Ra

He speaks with the voice of green-suited Osiris, his flesh like the Irish landscape awash with leaves a rash of truth-speaking forests and dolmens to drive our liar-fed minds skyward to matters higher.