(AA) Gl’Immortali II
What is a society without a heroic dimension
Jean Baudrillard
Prometheus
My voice is raised, the truth to tell,
And o’er his exiled urn will try
To pour a strain that shall not die
Alessandro Manzoni
Wide-eyed inside a nightmare’s aftershock,
The great God of War wakens in the rains,
Arms entermeddl’d, tied to craggy rock,
In craven rage instraining at the chains;
“Why hold me here?”
Shouts echo cross the seas,
No rescuers appear, now dropping to his knees,
He fills the cosmos with despair,
From dawn ’til the drop of night,
At last the Dark Lord made aware
Of the War God’s awful plight,
So sends three harpies thro’ the air,
Craw-throated feral flight,
From whose sharp claws raindrops a golden key,
What mass of slime uprises from the sea?
That key grabb’d by a tentacle,
& Lord Mars was releas’d,
Stands grateful, branding his skull
With numbers of the beast,
Pois’d ready for the battle, Hell’s hegemony increas’d.
Oceania
Trials of Strength
Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle
Aaron Hill
Mars track’d deep wolf prints North & West & South,
& found Fenir a-feasting in the East,
Plunged his brave gauntlet thro the drooling mouth,
To lose a hand but tame this famous beast;
Mounting its back
They gallop to Asgard,
Leading a snarling pack of blood-hounds battle-scarr’d.
As all Valhalla dined & drank
On the fare of Saehrimnir
Tyr strutted in & broke a shank
From the loins of Andhrimnir,
“Good brethren pleased I am to thank
You all for being here,
Lord Odin I have sworn to challenge Thor
& win thy favours as goes Aesir law.”
He dons the magical gauntlet
That Mars enfused with power,
Forearms firm set, grunts, groans & sweat,
The contest lasts an hour,
A table smash! the Aesir cheer, how tall did Mars tower!
Valhalla
Conversazione
Soft peace she brings; wherever she arrives
She builds our quiet as she forms our lives ;
Lays the rough paths of peevish Nature even
Matthew Prior
The goddess Karma flew to Fairyland,
Convers’d with Mab, Queen of the Pixie Glen,
By daffadowndillies them lovely fann’d,
Far from the prying eyes of Gods & Men;
Sipping their brews,
Teas of rare wildflowers,
They share their recent news, minutes turn to hours….
A wood nymph with translucent wings
Serves the best blueberry cakes,
Sings Mab, “These new Gods & their Kings
Seldom learn from late mistakes,
& discontent with what Fate brings,
Each lusts more while he takes –
In that I trust not Satanus, nor Mars,
Lords of land’s cancers & the sea’s catarrhs.
In these futurities foreseen
Your days must grow busy?”
“Not quite, my queen, I choose one scene
So very carefully –
Two families shall represent all of humanity.”
Fairyland
The Hastening
Let all the gods hear and bend for your yoke
Let sovereigns hear and fall prostrate before you
Let countries hear and bring you their tribute
The Seven to Erra
Upon Bifrost, lush bridge of rainbow light,
Which Asgard joins with Midgard’s mortal realm,
Alerted by black Valkyries in flight,
The handsome Heimdall don his golden helm
The Aesir come
Leading an army grand
Marching to the thunder drum, the scope of Heaven spann’d.
Odin counsels upcoming war
From stallion-steed Sleipnir,
To son & heir, lieutenant thor,
Who swings the hammer Mjolnir,
Points at Europa’s forest core
With sharpest spear, Gungnir,
“Beneath the morning progress of Sol’s lamp
There Zorya & her Amazons make camp.”
They waited ‘til the sun had swept
Far yon the scepter’d noon,
Sly & adept Thor’s heroes crept
‘Tween treetops, rock & dune,
To sight Tuchola’s garrison beneath a swollen moon
Lechia
Schism of Heaven
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon
Dylan Thomas
Before there passes time, some far off time,
When every palm should bare the Devil’s mark
& Mammon, like a Jabba in the slime,
Shall gorge all human labour, like a shark,
‘Til gutted full,
All monies must explode,
& divine lights dim dull as all accounts zeroed!
Before, totalitarian,
Humanity sells its soul,
Aviating erebian
Hordes of Hades’ angels squall,
T’where, singing Stygian paean
The First Prince of their Fall
Howls “Anti-hosanna!” thro’ conching horn,
Messiah urging never to be born.
They swept a lifeless parallax,
Pass Pluto, & all that,
Yon mofette cracks, long torture racks,
‘Til Hell spread icy flat,
Where on his master-throne, in jubilation, Satan sat.
Cocytus
Aesir Roar
Peace on this planet
Or guns glowing hot,
We lay there together
Jericho Brown
Thor summons a storm warflame-bolted,
At the onset of glorious onslaught,
Tuchola’s awfully assaulted,
It’s Amazons fall dead inside the fort;
One survivor
The Valkyries restrain,
The elderly Zorya, chain’d naked in the rain.
For destinies are as the sun
Which rises at the dawning,
Unstoppable, once we’ve begun
Our progress through life’s morning:
When only half-the-day is done,
Sudden, without warning,
We find our brightest face begin to fade
The death-mask of the midnight masquerade.
Odin arriv’d with victory
Fill’d toasts with hydromel,
All thrill’d to see his soldiery
With hero killers swell,
Then turn’d his gaze towards the east, where tromp’d the hordes of Hell.
Lechia
Heart of Hades
To my true king I offered free from stain
Courage & faith ; vain faith & courage vain.
For him I threw lands, honours, wealth, away
Lord Macaulay
Satanus, at Jove’s goodness, sneers disgust,
Prepares angels once more to rebel,
To cast them up the planet’s fissur’d crust
Where Mosca banish’d, once, to depthsy Hell;
Like Legionnaires
They gather, band, & form,
Surmounting cirques of stairs, the Devil’s daemon-swarm
As big fleas attract little fleas,
Sat on their backs to bite ’em,
& fleas even smaller than these
Find them & then alight ’em,
So, in ever-dwindling degrees,
On ad infinitum,
Evil pulses thro’ gods, thro’ priests, thro’ men,
Thro’ animals & back to fleas again.
More fallen angels take to air
With creak & scrape & hiss,
Ascend from where their kindred share
The cinder-swept abyss,
Ascending high & everwards for Heaven’s realms of bliss
Hell
Heroic Counsel
I find a strange knowledge of wind,
an open door in the mountain
pass where everything intersects
Lorna Dee Cervantes
High upon the snow-clad slopes of Snowdon
Britannia brandishes her family,
Empacing by her faithful Gwydion,
Awaiting Neptune’s first emissary;
Green Merman comes,
Darp’d in coral sharkskin,
The sounds of horns & drums… the meeting may begin.
Phoebus the drouthy scene illumes
As serious parlance cooks,
Zephyrs ruffle Ra’s ostrich plumes,
Her Majesty nears the crux,
“I sense the Harbinger of Dooms,
Rough cancer fills the flux,
The testing time forespaken draweth nigh!”
“Come the day,” shouts St£rling, “who’ll fight, who’ll fly.”
The loyal company, & true,
Cries ready for the War,
Violet Vishnu skims skiey blue,
Ra sails for dusky shore
Neptune accommodates Dagon, the Lion roars it roar!
Britain
Hell’s Legions
Lust for gold in the dreadful couch
Red as with blood are the heavens in flames
The roof-tops collapsed, a sight to appall
Dietrich Eckart
The long-horn’d one climbs to the Sapric Crag,
Roars out cross the Valley of the Dead,
Where groan dark woods, where drags his angry flag
Thro’ jagged trees that under him did spread;
Plague host appears,
A shamblegang that sways
& stumbles under spears, burn grass to smoky greys.
Em’rald-navell’d Asmodeus
Battle’s black protagonist
Let’s three hook-tooth’d & bulbous crows
Blood suckle his royal wrist,
Then cast them high, all Heaven shows
A shudder as he hiss’d,
“Sky, thou herest me! Sky, thou feareth me!
Sky, when seest me, shudder before me!
His army wades the River Styx,
Fording its torrid flow,
Picks scythe-topp’d sticks do tip & mix
Advancing row-on-row,
As replicants incarnate sluggish forwards scratch on slow.
Hell’s Fifth Circle
Mumble Words 