Alchemisland

A shadow which stands commanding the length of the land’s lay

Apes urgently climbing lapis-alived pillars lined with Ophirian diamonds

Conveying Solomon’s temple roof to heaven’s lathe, there are displayed

Ophidian icons remnant of iron age rites, scions of wisdom owl’s allowance

Prions aflame with religious devotions, candle revealed in tallow unallowable icons

Zircon-eyed dragonians whose draconian, odious rule defined tyrant for the human race

Gems brought forth with spade bathed in flame, or golden as Hesperidean fruits

Secret routes only Solomon and Pharaoh knew, a place where no nation’s flag flew

Which few could reach, lacking teachers, a place where rubies grew numerous

As dew drops in shocking November, where strange new animals with confusing arrangements

Played music from priapic trumpets, and rabbits with antlers dashed between opal plantations

Raiments succoured with stones sucked round by the drowning sea, Ophir’s least

Is the dream of all would-be Caesars, not even attained by richfamed Croesus, or Midas

Of the wiped tear ‘come golden cheek, of that gold’s redoubt no man makes sound

None speak save to ask has another heeded their lord’s orders, floors are orpiment

Those he has orphaned made like trophies, atrophied in gold like an alchemist’s idea of ivy

Ivory furnishings, beautiful as a phrase’s turn in the burning bard’s inkurn, ode-earning

The undiminished glitterance of that place, like a golden monstrance’s blazing face

Who can say they sailed that way, steered to hidden Ophir across mirror seas

Which reflect fear and scare sailors who draw near, who can say with haste

I made my dogged way to that waveswept bay, fortified in Phoenician days

That is to say those who came from Canaan, in whose gaze we are grasshoppers

The coppers are left on the docks, more room to make for the better rocks

Flocks of dog-sized diamonds in the river’s violence, a valuable flotsam men die for

Solomon thence is richer in coffer and fixture than any other leader on the earth

The worth of his least sovereignty is thirty times at least greater than his neighbour’s

Entire assets in evaluation, his learned cities become the destination

Of great men, and those of destiny, for ten ages without lessening

Wise is the man who seeks those lessons which lessen the deadweight in a man.