Mother serpent, slumbering deep, my will,
Upon my breast she rests and watches still
The thoughts and actions of my life's display,
Judging which ones might offend her sway.
With exquisite Apollonian sounds, I lull her sleep,
Lest she by chance catch Dionysus' scent so deep,
For after, I shall need assistance fine and slight,
Since the base one, when enraged with all her might,
However painfully and raw I pay the price,
With venom, she will sacrifice my heart in vice.
Bent over existence's abyss, profound,
A blind, irreverent little man, unbound,
I grope for you, bitter goddess of the deathless sound.
You, unnaturally cold and finely sleek,
Absolute truth, utterly nude and meek,
Small sister of pleasure, elegant Melancholy's peak.
Hidden eternal patroness of nature's art,
Faithful enemy of the faint of heart,
Yet my redemption and heaven's finest part.
As a companion, I worshipped you in snow,
Sweet nectar of death, a lethal, gentle flow,
Libations, sacrifices, all my years bestow.
You, forever chthonic, queen of a palace unheard,
Eternally beautiful, beyond any word,
Olympian priestess of nightmare's descent, absurd.
In a dream, spasms found me, deep and dread,
They woke in me a thirst for calm instead.
I rose with tears of terror, stark and wild,
Various voices in a meter, anxious, riled.
I searched for them but felt a blindness grow,
An employee in a circus of crippled woe,
Grieving for clown-lovers, lost in their art,
A philosopher in houses set apart.
I built them as another's stern command,
And measured a defeat across the land.
A bleeding silence struck me, sharp and clear,
As I stood stunned by irony divine and sheer.
You cunning and bereft of grace,
In epochs ere the Titans' race,
You schemed to bring a god to earth,
Adorned with paeans, gave Love birth.
Your power craved to be sustained,
And you hunted ambrosia, unrestrained,
But you did not foresee the turn so stark,
That fed and fortified your own dark arc.
Now you lament with feminine tears,
Forgetting the womb that quelled your fears,
You yourself added chains anew,
A tragic shape of childhood's view.
I leave to the void a legacy, a rod,
As I depart with a bowed head, unshod—
To this alone, I owe a gift, a grace,
(A muddled mind in a sealed bottle's space).
Three luckless colors, a waxen caress,
A heart of embankments, few tears' oil to bless,
The deeds of ink in abundant darkness.
