Alchemisland

Violent veinblue fruits, humid and gelid, frigid fruits growing in pair in parity

Pears like misshapen timers depend from branches, inching in rarified air

Cloistered bower like a statue of old power, He glowering from flowerbeds

Arising clod-capped his foliate head, beleafed, beneath a crown thrifted from reeds

And driftwood, verdigris forming a hood, his utterance is the bud

At his muck-shedding hands fluttering the below urges above

Urgently they come curving from the turgid tumult, like spurred

Horses or spurned lovers leaving, leafing, at dashing speed

A green knight, in green livery, upright upon a green steed

Flat capped flowers like upturned flagons, couple-coloured snapdragons

In white-grey with pink hinting like hallucinated angels, a butterfly’s weight tilts them

Thistles milkgiving and bonecoloured king roses, cloven king reposes unlonely

Forest denizens with whom he keeps company sing in accompaniment

He is a player accomplished, his swollen cheeks fit to play a trumpet

No note askance, in perfect order his hands like clamp over the holemaking

Notes so the doleful day is roused with plainsong, the sound is amazing

The glade is seen to sway, made alive by that sylvan symphony enlivening

Songs outflung which roused taciturn Solomon to dance, I lying there

Sleeping like an Endymion as the sands of time run timely and perpetual

Punctual as the forthcoming petals at Demeter’s exit from Hades

The snow filled holes are again like dents, intense insensate yet

Sensed tangibly their lashing, all sun dashing and in liaison

Lashes of sashed red in sexual psychodramatic flashes, like axed cask

Outflowing that cerise claret enstowed, bestowed with bold colour bee drawing

Moss like a fox translated to a mould, green and gold blowing on the westfold

Like breath held in humanchest, impelling

Perilous to ingest, pearlescent and pleasant

Pheasant feathers and peacock tethers measured in triskeled spirals

Topped with solar eyes these triumphal spires of imperial purple

Turquoise and indigo and azure there espied.