Gold much in Egypt
Gods older than the foam which drank Atlantis
Arch fantasist whose phantom hand called up every flower
He toward whom all followers tend eventually
Ear lender whose housing lobes empathic eternal paternal tenderness
At disposal every power, every rotad hour known to he Oldest
When ceaseless cleansing rains started, the heart of Tempestarii shattered
Again facing Atlantean patterns, looking to legend as lantern to illuminate a widening Atlantic; gelid hands at neck.
Gold none more precious plainly than the measureless wealth of the throne of old
Which Octavian’s heart-reigned mind treasures foremost
Rome’s throne, whose seat homed revered bones ages after Homer
Agrippa’s host captured Corcyra and Methone, lost Kabbalah sefirot
Above which Octavian’s flag flutters, Antony’s foe growing in confidence.
Antony wine-swollen decreasing in competence
Slovenly in sage-haunted onyx chambers drinking seer-concocted decocted admixtures as surcease from a shrinking planet and the upcoming planless battle on the plantless plain of the uncaring ocean
He had seen in keener days, with fleeter feet and finer sight, his life fire not yet at its height, the famed Eleusinian mysteries
What the sages dreamed when the seasons were still Demeter’s
Great gutter ocean measureless in metres threshed
Bubbling motion ineluctable, Egypt’s fleet sails hastily to action at Actium.
Octavine quadriremes laze, cased by creased mainsails
Masts in miniature, pteruges like lank destrier skirts lifted
Manhood drained into the Aegean, piss like driftwood glistening suncoloured in appearence
Paeans to pagan names, served under famed Priam in the days before Greek navies came in pursuit of beauty, naming the ocean purple
Pearl-perfect Helen of the Hellenes, whose eloping busies oceans
Movements not seen since Cyclopes built their exalted fortresses.
Space-surveying Captain decks pacing
Cloak swept behind batlike, lip firm as an actor’s when he left his black-haired widow and sole heir weeping without turning back
Seals bathing, abating waves framing beachheads
Sun bait for ranging angels
Beating down obscenely unseemly
Rows of breathless rowers almost unseated by sweat, heat hazing what is seen
Hastening rage of evening embracing day’s death
Lictor inspecting ranks and condition of arms
Honed moon axe-blade atop coupled staves make a fasces
Sweaty regretful hefty layers of office dreadful in this weather
He stops mid-line to doff his helm
An enslaved Nubian used to kneeling comes out to mop down his sopping brow, as the undrowned swab boarded decks of friends’ blood.
Soldiers’ sights looming where oft learned eyes drift
Cloud-hooded moon poet’s dipping well rift twinning ours and other worlds
Swirling pink tunnels stirred pearls alluring in purity
Surety one would ne’er return upon entering enhancing desirability
Alluring lunar devices limn liminal evening’s uneven sightline
Side to side land-denied pray to Poseidon named Neptune, of old Irish Mannanan
One smiling legionary overtaken by his wine speaks of misluck tirelessly
“Oh, to be owed sinecure; to have been oathed favour by saved Emperors!”
Bobbing azure shallows, chasing waves fizzle out meeting their own tails
Swaying horizon dipping diving, it will morning before they away
Each ships’ rail emblazoned with scenes of Grecian derring
Erring heroes who died before age blemished them, Homer’s faultless blameless
Draining fauned grails of mawkish old wine
Pale left untaken for the God of Grain, they are shameless in revel
Tales told by greybeard sailors during the hour of long shadows, under heaven
Fadó fadó long long ago, tales of Titans in times before matter and those clothed by it
All land honed from their cloven bones, hill rounds merely mounds of enormous slumped forms
Level ground is not for us, we who die astride tides do drown at death’s sentence.
Pious soldiers, reborn under Christly Mithras, kneeling on a beach
Fossilmarbles millions tossed flotsam, prehistoric marvels painted on
Splayed hands lessen lancing sun
Sideglancing: dancing slaves snake-scarved gaily playing by Cumaean caves human-made
When they bend to tend the uneven lengths of pleated rope, it raised kneeward bee-favoured clover-coloured hems
Revealing latticing scars, rune-carved bars signalling ownership
Like unclear ogham lining a spine of deer bone in a Mount Sandel cyst burial
Arts of Andals.
Fierce hooks stacked awaiting, grasping eagle talons ferried dock to deck
Packed into harpax by hard-backed, whip-damaged flanks below ears mangled by privateer’s knives; scars old strifes as mark trialful sea lives
On the foredeck men with Celtic bands tattooed on arms and anchor-décored hands handle munitions
A harpax well-aimed, deftly-fired shames ballistae, impact rack and ruin of lesser vessels
Storm of shrapnel lumpen, splinter-serrated scraps spinning on slaughter-scarletted swells
Snacks on lesser boats snaps prows slits masthead throats knocks aside floating dead.
Propitiating Mars aboard ship
Exalted blood extravasates eviscerated sacral animals
Dripping upon stemless pate of imperial exhorder
Acolytes hidden orders professing to know Athena’s daughters’ true names
Bid arise prospective brothers ichor-smothered
They take no lovers other than sacred prostitutes denoted Inanna
They hight themselves below others, they will not long for Olympian heights
They crave on lonely, icy nights without covers only her delights
But they are loyal because they are frightened
In battle, she heightens courage and sense, arms against struggle
Endows with strength the blood drinkers.
Like dreams of future wars manifest in dawn ages
Armhouses of dead Emperors beneath waters pristine linger underfringe
Wrecks of marine melees from times antique, old as Eden
Thereunder yon verdant garden where go dreams, clean as eddies along unseen Hippocrene
Ships cleaved cleanly
Sand grains sieve through sluice grates
Sharks at play mariner’s malaise
Gull splayed on deck spraying blood where struck
Wrecks, halved masts and rent prows, drowned sailor’s open mouths the waiting houses of eels, foulness seals it like clouds.
As at festival, Jupiter’s priests aboard Libernian Vessels pour overboard libations
Imperial Carnifex Megas Doux whose thumb’s accent damned many gladiators
Pleated sash, swoon-inducing enamelled cuirass, curious quiff swoop
Stoops placing a damming finger in brine’s path, sliding along his deck’s plank lines
Raising sea-glazed fingers presses them splayed to brow like a thorn crown
Wavethrown blessings from PoseidoNeptune’s trining ident spray acceptance up to the gunwales
Beside him, a hawkhelmed soldier chewing a wheatstalk astride the balustrade
At his greaves a resting shield many blows to breast repealed but none at sea
Face depicting commonplace frieze motif, Hera-maddened Hercules at labour slaying the Lernaean Hydra teased out in emerald and ivory.
Alchemisland 
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