Alchemisland

The wounded king emerges from a cave, leaning on a gnarled staff

His steps like stones of queer effulgence tattoo with light earth’s face

So that his graceful way might be easily traced or aped, at measured pace

He walks all the way from the mountainous place to the marketplace

He longs the exalted altar but the lenders before him clog the sacred floor

Divorced from placidity, too much time indoors, mouth a warhorn

He calls them forlorn, lawless horsemen in blasphemous disorder

To discuss pecuniary concerns in sight of the creator of the world

Whose swirling hairs guide the careless air, over which our ships preside

Anger redolent tides Noah’s time, seeming to climb, humming off ivory

Scorned lenders grab altar’s horns in surrender, Solomon’s law mentioned

Jesus in violent abstention, pious in righteous violence, not a Pilate

Scorns thrice, pirates pirates pirates, liars operating in god’s house

Must be thrown out, cast down like heretics for your wicked practice

Benefactors none, malefactors all, you have taken the sun to apply a tithe

On diminutive camel could not ride through needle’s thread sphere

Neither will heaven permit ye, your incurrences incur dear costs

Your worth in worthless currencies, heaven’s coin is liberty

Life’s surcease is but conference of keys to a long locked door

Freedom from materiality, gleaming incorporeality, shining skinshedding

All this you will be forbidden from, you will go to Nod and Sodom

Out of Eden, out of Edom, out of the light of Adam of the plants

I can’t go one day without taking a hit

I can’t go without scratching that itch

Hitched and miserable ever since.