Alchemisland

Toed ice parts like a foe sliced, floes divided tidally glide along.

The gnarled salad of a coppiced planet shown slight regard, almost gone.

Scar latticed. Close as Alice to madness. Mars seemed unfar

In the garden of unfair beauty, where ardour becomes duty.

Wolf-crooned moon a marble gleaming gleeful, seed of evil, mute me

Medieval dreams, keep-kept remedies.

Deep mysteries parting sea-like. Submerged, and not partially

Pharaoh’s parched forces, marshalled in cyclically-marshy Thebes;

Taken and swept away, archer, horse and slave recapturing chain.

Hagridden dreams, tonguebitten pleas. A split crane

Bag spills onto the chipped, sherd-heaped midden.

Water-warped psalter’s assaultive midnight scree. Screaming unbidden

Pleasing grief. My evil gods are claws and teeth, capricious fiends each.