TEST TUBES

Joe Jugg, he was a chemist, sure–of Truth he was a seeker;
Solutions of all kinds he mixed within his little beaker.
But once he judged his pH wrong, and when it cleared (the pall),
This was his plaintive comment as they scraped him off the wall:
“When mixing NO3,” he said, “that is, if you ever should,
Note: Filter it through paper that is really made of wood;
For cotton, it has properties, you know this, I asume,
If these two mix with glycerol, ’tis likely to go “Boom”.
Now that is what has happened here-would I’d listened to the teacher!
What little there is left of me must perforce meet the preacher.”

(undated)

THE ABYSS

Point-source light of phallic tower
Scrying, spying, eyeing, lying
Sharp star-sheen; metallic power
Crying, sighing, vying, dying

Thicketed, the brambled numbers
Fiery steel-springs: Golden Ram
Dream-sequenced perception slumbers
Alien space-beast; abstract am

Star-shot canvas; serpent flower
Roiling, coiling, boiling, spoiling
Sun-burst nova; northlight hour
Toiling, broiling, moiling, foiling

11-5-61

THE ARK OF THE COVENANT

Lion lust
Queen of Spheres
Monad windowless divining
Arrow thrust
Deathless years
Star alembic role defining

Neptune’s trident
Sea storm strident
Waves combining
Forms intwining
Sea salt teeming
Pledge redeeming
Bivalve plenum
Star-spate venom
Screwing physis
Starry Isis
Ophidian
Meridian

Grail task
Night sky manic
Fierce love of Heaven, pull of soul
Lampshade mask
Love joy panic
Diana Zagreus, take your toll!

Sailor drowning
Hound dog clowning
Meaning hidden
Knowledge midden
Salt shape sigil
Star spray vigil
Name reviling
Goddess smiling
Snake vibration
Sharp elation
Crustacea
Acacia

12-5-61

THE BEATNICK MOTHER GOOSE or: Old Analysts never die, they just smell that way!

Like, man…

It was the night before Yuletide,
And all through the pad
Not a creature had eyes
Not even old Dad.
The mice were all tucked
In their war surplus sack
And The Snowman was a’banging
The bongos, out back.
When what should I hear
On my old radar set
But the high screaming whine
Of a low flying jet
And out of the Night,
Which was frigid and black,
Came a red flannel Cat
With a pack on his back
And a horn in his hand,
Blowing wild on the breeze,
He was riding the needle
Like, “Cut out and freeze!”
He came on like a bomb,
Dropping straight from the rack,
And left skid marks all over
The top of my shack
So I throw out the crash pad
And invite the man in
And he says, “like crazy, Dad,
Slip me some skin!
So I light him some pod
And we ball it up big

 And he sits there, like cool, man,
Flipping his wig.
While the mice are all stoned
In their little round beds
With visions of cool jazz
In their hip little heads.
And we make with the Zen,
Like the sound of one hand,
And the voice of the cuckoo
Is heard in the land!
‘Till the wee hours have fled:
Then he holds up the sack
And shakes down the goodies
For the mice in the pack.
A sax for the oldest,
A zip-blade for me (like Mac-the-Knife!),
A jolt for the Snowman
And bags of pure tea!
Then into the sandbox,
And he’s out like a light,
But he gives it the count-down
And blasts out of sight.
But before he can go, man,
I lift that white thatch
And dig those glazed eyeballs
In their little round hatch.
And there in the Night
“Like a square on the kick,
Why, it’s smiling old Laughing Boy
“Jolly” Beat Nick!

11-27-59

THE BLACK MESSIAH

Within the Colosseum roars
the restless Roman mob
Howling for the blood of Christians
driven forth with jeer and probe.
Shift the scene a dozen centuries
to northern Europe land;
See the Christians prick the pagans
as they search for Nimir’s brand;
Hear the righteous, feel the struggle,
know the horror of the thought
Of the swelling horde of innocent
that are for slaughter caught.
Caught to satisfy the thirst of those
who ride the church as wain,
Though the Christians died as martyrs yet
the witches burned in vain.

Be ye not deceived,
Still those sobs within your throat,
Let not your hearts be grieved,
Soldiers of the Mighty Goat!

This ritual that mocks the church
with incantations of the Mass
But opens pathways to the search
for knowledge old, and not of crass.
For we who are to Lilith born
remain in homage to our Queen;
The Old Religion reared again
will batter down all walls between,
To conquer all that men can know
and raise again our rule supreme;
O’er all the nations of the world
the Witchcult will regain its dream!
And those who died upon the pyre
will take their honors from the fire.

11/20/40

THE BLACK OSIRIS

Dread Virgin, Mother, Harlot, Crone
Thy dusky beauty sears my dreams
Direct my quest to Thee alone
Dissolve this world in all it seems
KALI! Mother of Horror

Transmitter of the Secret Seed
Thyself untouched and undefiled
Bend down and bless us in our need
Pure black perfection that has smiled
KALI! Mother of Horror

Deep black Abyss that is the mind
Eternal Worm that cannot die
Save by Your grace to humankind:
Relieve us in our agony
KALI! Mother of Horror

Dark Virgin pregnant with The Child
The Dragon’s Head is raised for Thee
To tread upon. The bruise is mild
But he explodes in ecstacy
KALI! Mother of Horror

6-24-61

THE CHILD

Around, around, the circling Hound
Around, around He goes
A zero round, the Hound has found
A land No Body knows
Around, around the Hound has Clowned
Enquiring through his gnose.

Around, around, the Troubador
Walks on the precipice
The crocodile and tiger war
The dove and serpent kiss:
The Troubadour will now explore
The precipice Abyss.

Around, around, the world of sense
The weary warrior led
Around, around: His recompense
A tall and thorny bed.
A Child of Perfect Innocence
The fiery Angels dread.

Jun-July ’61

THE COMBAT ENGINEERS

We are the Corps of Engineers,
The forts we build are made to stand for ever
We are fighting pioneers,
The Army rolls on roads of our endeavor.
Casements and bridges of steel,
Or mines that blow the foe to eternity;
We are THE COMBAT ENGINEERS,
We are the Essayons Fraternity.

1942

THE CYNIC

The passions of my youth have burned me dry
And unrequited dreams stand in my eyes
They were my hopes — and now they ill disguise
My futile gesturings. They pass me by.

I would admit no mystery so high
As to be sacred from my questing pries —
Nor would I seek defeat in compromise
But stood athwart the sky-winds — such was I.

The bright-eyed dreams of youth are dead and gone
My destiny is done, my die is cast.
Perhaps there will be surcease with the dawn

Perhaps – but I have thought that in the past.
The wheeling universe grinds on and on
Insensible – insatiate – and vast.

9-17-44

THE DRAGON'S HEAD

Pragmatic Earth Sign, Bird of Light
                                                 Frigidity
                                                 Rigidity
Dramatic Birth Line, Word in Flight
                                                 Clarity
                                                 Polarity

Star Snake Shining, Blind Sperm Spinning
                                                 Normality
                                                 Reality
Bright Roots Twining, First Beginning
                                                 Quality
                                                 Frivolity

11-29-61

THE DWELLER ON THE THRESHOLD

The Angel stood on Gilead
His wings a coursing flame
Two eyes of piercing fire he had
With folded arms he came
The Angel stood on Gilead
Pure number was his name

July ’61

THE ELFINWISE

The daughters of Odin are Fey, my Lad,
The daughters of Odin are Fey,
The buxom daughters of Frey I’ve had
When the icy arctic moon was mad
And the snow was cold and deep, my Lad,
In a land beyond the day.

Aye, in a land beyond the day, my Lad,
In a land beyond the day.
Where the Valkyr eyes are grey and sad
As they pace the windy terrace, clad
In a lace of steel and gold, my Lad!
And they hunger for their prey.

Aye, and they hunger for their prey, my Lad,
And they hunger for their prey.
Valhalla’s grim display has had
No Viking strong to feed the mad
Hyrrockin Queen of Snow, my Lad,
For many a weary day.

5-7-42

THE GNOME

There is a Gnome
In the iron mountains of the western desert
Where the jagged spires of the granite rimrock
Come ripping up through the corroded foothills
And he lives in these iron mountains
This Gnome
And he plays on the flame seared plains below
With his trails of dust and his twisting thermals
That begin nowhere and end in swirling nothingness

And he swims over the heat choked ravines
Flowing ever and around the blistering hearth stones
The chipped and glowing walls of the open hearth stones
This Gnome – whose furnace breath
Is the rippling heat of the bake oven
Pulsing and simmering on the desert floor
And in whose cupped and twisted hands
The molten hyalesence
Of the mirage is prisoned

And he feeds on the fires in his crucible
This Gnome
Feeding and swimming in the fluid seas of the flame winds
In the viscous, liquid heat of the burning flame winds
Which lick the baked and scorching clay with tongues
Of fire that seem as serpent shapen flames
To bathe the nether islands of the sun
At their dire perihelion

And this amorphous Gnome
Like some smoke pillared djinn a god evoked
To stand the watch of Cerberus
Above the river Phlegethon – has found
Beneath the slabs of basalt that are split
And rivened by the long diurnal siege
A noduled grain mercuric that had seeped
And sweated from the smelt of cinnabar

This Gnome – this entity – this eidolon
Self procreate of fire and flame and heat
This Gnome

7-31-43

THE GREAT WHITE HUNTER or: Bill Green Redivivus

In the forms jungle primeval,
Like a Knight Medieval,
Our “Wild Bill” Green will seek his foes
Slash red tape and step on toes.
Stalking the wily bureaucrat
In his native habitat.
Straightening out the young green peas
Lost in forest, finding trees.
Up to all his usual tricks,
Shrink his eyeballs with a “fix”.
For the sacred cow of rubber
Hone his fangs, carve the blubber,
Smiling while he eviscerates.
Lifts his voice and deprecates
A pay scale that will guarantee
Organized stupidity.

In this deck there’s just one Joker
He’s a card, bright and ochre,
Who should be dealt with, back to back.
He’s a living One-Eyed Jack!

(and the One-Eyed Jacks are Wild, Son!)

11-20-59

THE HEAVENS OF URANIA

Blind Horus on His Falcon Throne
Has blasted back the sky.
The Hawk upon the World has thrown
The challenge of His cry
That Virgin Isis veiled, alone,
The terror of His Eye.

Child of Light
Child of Story
Child of Archsupernal Glory
Child of Night
Child of Season
Child to bridge a World’s Unreason.

8-25-61

THE INTRUDER

Come, Man, let us go
We have Intruded — you and I
Who were never meant to be
Upon this toil worn planet.
Alone we stand — and are alone
Though multitudes may mill about our feet
And know us not — what had you thought?
That they would welcome Us with open arms?
Be not the Fool
From that which is Outside we came to be
And this is our reward —
That we are shunned as is this mottled plague
We and our company.
For is it not as I did oft foretell?
These creatures are as scum upon the Urth
That live and breathe and populate and die
And are as blind as kobalds in the Sun —
That transcendental light of ether born.
We speak — and are not heard
We paint — and no man sees
We sing — and find our song not known
We mold — and they know not the form
We are Outsiders

So let it be and grieve not at their loss
Come — for there is other life we need attend
Through galaxies remote the life tide roars
And worlds unknown have spawned their hellish broods
Who knows — perhaps on one of these we’ll find
A sentient crystal — or some horn’d Thing
Or eyeless monster of the sub-terrane
Whose weird and alien consciousness has found
Perception as a sense —–
There we may rest
And hold communion with the Silent Ones
To know again the Beauty that was Eld
Before the Cataclysm and the Cold
Had sharded Kolabon athwart the gulf
So let us go
And leave them in the fector of their slime
Until eternal sameness rots their souls
And they have found the surcease of the dead —
Whenas they walk beyond the walls of sleep —
Is but a prelude of the greater storm
That crouches just beyond the barrier reef
Rumbling in its nimbostratic murk —
Come, Man, let us go — we have Intruded ——-

9-17-43

THE LAMP OF THE SPIRIT

Cat Head Goddess, Lion of Light
Thy whirlpool pulls all things to Thee
To fire the Beacons of Thy Night
And justify Duality.

Angel Star
Angel bright
Angel glowing fiery light
Angel far
Angel folie
Angel burning hot and holy

The Negative attracts the norm,
Black Space is vacuum to the Soul;
Reflected Light has stirred the storm
And lightning Arrows to Its goal.

Angel Star
Angel bright
Angel glowing fiery light
Angel far
Angel folie
Angel burning hot and holy

8-24-61

THE LONG WATCH

You stand your post in eerie still,
The night moves slowly on,
Above the hill
The moon is chill,
You’re waiting for the dawn.

The plain below is lost in sleep,
The sombre rocks are old,
The snow is deep
Where shadows creep
And, somehow, very cold.

But in that endless time you stand,
‘Tween midnight and the day
You try your hand
To understand
Why war should come your way.

You think of Home, and what it meant
To leave the ones you love.
The song you sent
When Holy Lent
Proclaimed the World above.

You think of little things we know
That make us what we are
A guy named Joe,
A movie show,
Or working on your car.

At times it seems but yesterday
That Mother’s cheeks were wet
With tears that lay,
And seemed to say,
“My son, please don’t forget.”

Or then again it’s Father, who
With voice so gruff and slow
Was proud of you,
It thrilled him through
To see you turn and go.

This is that private history
A man may not confide.
But memory
For company
Will keep him warm – inside.

12-20-42

THE MAGUS

King Arthur reigns in Camelot
The Zodiac his Table Round
With Merlin Mage and Lancelot
And Fair Diana, crescent crowned.

In groves at night your Golden Cup
By Brother Nemo lifted up
O Babalon the Beautiful!

Sir Palamede the Saracen
Rode forth to slay the Questing Beast
While Parsifal the Paladin
Has found his Wedding, Wine and Feast!

In groves at night your Golden Cup
By Brother Nemo lifted up
O Babalon the Beautiful!

Apr 1961

THE MASS

A slashing knife, and thick red blood
Across your breast a weal of stain,
White are your limbs and white the pain
Of ecstasy, and earth, and rain.

2-12-42