Into the accrual of form and the quickening of flesh.
That connects the wearer to the universe.
Where the divine play is performed...
I have fallen
And not yet overcome.
Yea, my mask disarrayed
From so many shifting and stirring
Strange and ancient dreams that yet cling
To my hidden face,
My talisman displaced and lost within a dream.
But take vast heroic faith that I will, yea
That I will find it and rise up
And confront everything
And yet
Never overcome
The horror that trembles
In the overwrought nerves of the abyss,
Nerves continuously seeking catharsis,
Nerves like roots splitting into Hydra’s heads
Whose teeth have too many times been sown
In this dark soil of human flesh
Take vast heroic faith that I definitely will
Confront everything with this face, with this talisman
And yet
Never overcome
The simple, ordinary horror, yea
The plain extraordinary wonder
Of the dazzling abyss behind this mask,
 |
| Venetian (modern) |
Of the dazzling abyss
Between this magical face and this magical Universe
That costumes and consumes men and worlds.
This dazzling abyss mysteriously speaking its lines
From out of the plenitude of the Unknowable,
Its thin, still voice
Terrible in its sublime vastness,
Speaking its lines from out of the mystical opening
Of this sacred face
Through which the poet sings
Before this dance of masks beside the bonfires of ascension
Lo, before this dance of birth, of death, of war,
Of marriage and of exorcism:
The poet sings
Of the Self -- the Other
These same
Which move in step within the circle of time
Distractedly following the fugitive beat
Pounded out by the ponderous stars
Tattooing the drum of space
With the fateful measure of sublime terror,
Pounding out the complex rhythms
Of their endless desires for love and terror
Betwixt the Self and Other,
Dancing round the fire of mirrors that look on
At this dance which arrives and collides
In the furtive reflection of its own reality,
Casting itself in quicksilver shadows
Within the vast field of the Unconscious,
Entranced by the startling, quivering motions
Of its own reflection,
Lurking and forever ready to lunge at itself
Both Prey and predator... in a moment
From out of the startled gap
Between its hand and eye.
The hand within the eye: the eye within the hand
Shrouded in the terrifying context between
The seer and the seen,
All-Seeing and All-Knowing
Yet hidden within a fist.
Stunned, amazed, and distrustful
Of its own fugitive reflection
Within the mirror of its own being,
Looking and questing deep within its limitless surface
For something truly true within itself;
The sole purpose for which it Be.
Looking for a face
Strong, certain and beautiful...beyond all forms...
Which can overcome
The embarrassment of its poverty
And the embarrassment of its riches
Of Love which must hide
Behind a form, a mask, a face
 |
| Haida- British Columbia (traditional) |
Which conceals the truth
As it always reveals the truth
Of Creation’s own love and terror of Its Self
Within this ritual drama of the Aeons of the Universe
Containing infinite lines and scenes
Within the unbound folios of boundless space
Penned from the mirrory ink between the stars
For a face that no longer conceals
Love for the All
For a face that has no fear of falling or rising,
Of living or dying,
That understands that merging
Is always auspicious
But ever dangerous
 |
| African (modern) |
II
Lo, this poem is a talisman,
An ancient mask carved from out of
The everlasting being of space,
Out of the AlphaOmega,
Which at last understands that its role
Is apocalyptic; that its mysterious character
Reconciles Escaton to Genesis
And goes forth to answer the demands
Of this timeless role to perfection:
To be a poem, a face, a revelation
Of love and love’s courageous beauty
Bearing the Image of God
Yea, let this poem, this face
Constantly enter the Twelve Gates of Alchemy
Let it undergo the horrible pain of transmutation
As it is calcinated in fire so its eyes fill with blood
Until the spectacle witnessed is at once
The entrance and the exit and the process.
Let it open its mouth and say,
"I am the man of lead and I am withstanding an intolerable force."
Let it brave the unending encounter
With the Azoth of measureless electrical transformation
And endure the perilous experience of Its Self,
Stage after stage, reaching through mortification
Toward perfection and beauty
And back again
Within the magic of constant Death
Let it experience Its Self
Through the immediate mediation
Of the Other
And Thus Come
To at last understand
The Secret of Life
And no longer look like a Fool
Hiding from itself in the scenery,
But find a place
Which is a face
To place the mask of a mighty and wise Magician on,
One who dons the vestures and aspect of Heirophant
To perform the priestly sacraments
Of marriage, who therein performs
An everlasting exorcism,
A great thanksgiving, a Eucharist of peace and plenty,
Who ceaselessly performs
Absolutions and Final Unctions that are born again
In the eternal, starry baptisms of
The benedictions of Love,
Granting us Confirmation
Prior to our descent.
 |
| African (modern) |
III
Behold, this talisman, this poem, this face,
Is to be held up steadfastly
And gazed upon concentratedly,
Is to be looked into deeply
For inside it
Live
Timeless images:
A kaleidoscopic flux
Of luminous, motile dioramas
Of deathless saints
Cut in relief
Of philosophic stone
From the mighty cathedral walls
Of the One Spirit,
Cradling in the nooks of their feminine arms
Their meek and severed heads
Like newborn babes
So closely held to their breasts.
 |
| Notre Dame |
Deathless saints tucked softly into tall, vast naves
Standing guard with huge broadswords beside them,
Heavily armed
Before the utmost, innermost sanctuaries of most
Holy Love and Wisdom.
Behold, this poem is adorned
With countless surreptitious carvings
Of the face of the Greenman
Hidden at the highest point
Of the cathedral steeples of Europe;
A long, winding peregrination to the sheer vertices
(Which should not be missed).
This talisman is carefully woven
Into large, confounding magical knots
Of great complexity that darkly turn
Into long, multicursal labyrinths
Overseen by depraved gargoyles who countenance
The profane mystery of the human Minotaur,
And somewhere, cautiously trailing out,
Ariadne’s thread (barely shown).
This face contains the massive, heaving sculpture
Of the fallen angel, Asmodeus, straight from the depths of Hell
Bearing on its pedestal this motto:
“Begone -- I conceal the secrets and mysteries of God!"
This poem, this face, this talisman
Is a Cyprian plate etched by an insane artist
With a picture of a very old riddle
Engraved inside a secret
Drawn again inside an enigma
Etched once more inside a mystery
All engraved inside and out, ad infinitum
Upon the stone-faced Sphinx of the Arcanum
Opening and closing its mouth
In a terrifying yawn,
Or is it a laugh...or...or...
A scream?
IV
Behold,
This poem, this talisman, this face
Is magickally constructed through the
Ceremonial signs and somatic gestures
Of the long occult ritual and sacred drama
Of the rhythm, intensity, and measure
Of the One Breath
Which transforms all along the journey
From birth to death, from waking to sleeping
And back again,
All formed form the magical intent
To banish one’s own darkness
And ward off the infernal night
Seen only blindly in these Days of Man
 |
| Austrian (ancient) |
Lo, this poem, this talisman, this face,
Is to be held up
As it victoriously sings and courageously dances
Before a strange, cruel, hostile orb
That spins in celerity
Amidst a sleeping, tossing Universe
Fitfully dreaming forth
Its last, unfinished epic
In which all the characters
I think
Must eventually die,
In which all the masks
I think
Must eventually be removed, must be torn off,
In which I think... and know
That everyone must die
In the visceral mystery
Of this storm-torn theater
With all its doors blown off, its ceiling scaled into
The Unknown and The Unknowable
By the galing winds of the Abyss
Ripping open the stage and all the seats
To this performance entitled
 |
| Germanic (traditional) |
"The Black Hand Tackled In Chapel Perilous”,
Lifted up in the maelstrom of Mysterium Tremendum
That won’t stop blowing until
Someone...
Someone says, “Please, is it all right if we leave?
There are no more characters or scenes, are there?
Please we’ve all witnessed the massacre of the dreamers
Seen their resurrection and apotheosis,
Seen that all of this was concurred upon,
Both Murderer and Murdered
Please, it really is finished now,
Isn’t it?
 |
| Chapel Perilous |
Yet everyone still dying, I think, for now
This lone, disembodied voice carried away
By an avalanche of wind back into the Abyss,
Carried away before finding out the moral of the story,
Before finding out here whom the real hero is behind the mask,
Or learning that the moral to the story
Is the poetic drama itself -- Nothing else.
Only the histrionics of the divine tragicomic
That fear and love choreograph,
Before finally seeing here below
The Sole Actor
Unmasked upon the stage
The Author and Director
Of this Play
At last presenting Himself-
Perhaps a hero, perhaps a villain, or
Perhaps a stupid fool.
 |
| Mongolian (traditional) |
V
Lo, this poem is a talisman
For fending off the indifference
Or, vis a vis, the overconcern
As to how it all ends
And re-begins, -en medias res-
Within the dream of life and death.
This face, this poem, once inert and unformed
Is a talisman to which I have given
Conscious shape, energy and direction
Through long meditation, through long poetic ritual
For the dispelling of the inability
To endure one more day
Of the unavoidable mystery
Of this dream of the Body
In which I continue to arise every morning
To face another day at the end of this century,
At the completion of this cycle, at the conclusion of this Age.
 |
| Ancient Ghana |
This poem is all my faces
And my only face,
My only talisman
Which I point like a ritual sword into the darkness,
A mask that I face into the portending night
Of this nearly finished cycle of day
Of this cosmic age, of this small particular life,
(I am not sure which yet)
For I think this life is its own cosmic age.
And so, dream, and perchance to sleep
And to be refreshed by knowing all this at last,
But in the vicious mean time of all duration
Driven by the terrible habits and instincts
Of the animal soul
I know that it is all One
Face, Mask, Talisman, Poem
I have seen repeatedly displaced in my many dreams
Within the vast ritual and drama
Of this talismanic dream of the Universe
 |
| Ancient Swiss |
And that is All --
Theaters, words, places, winds, mindscapes, faces
Of my own long escapade
Through the one Mind of the One Self-
But I am too tired to be anguished
By the factual irony of this rumor
And all its wars, that I long to escape.
VI
Lo, this poem is a talisman
For accelerating the long process,
For speeding this beast of burden journey
Of not being done, not even close it seems
To Being
The Accomplished, the swift Thus Come-
Still only the Scarab’s long march through the cold abyssal wastes
Beneath two moons -
One of song and one of dung.
This poem is of the saints, all the deathless saints
At the distant beginning and throughout the long course
Of this poem of the Universe.
It is for the mighty and intense bringing
Of the heart into the mind
And the mind into the heart, now.
To think gravely and lightly
On all these terrors and desires of the Universe
Which have been done,
To which we as the Cosmic Man and the Cosmic Woman
Have thus conceived, thus sired, thus given birth to
And have thus been born amidst and among.
Yea, this poem is a talisman
For ensuring the attainment and realization
Of One Thing: Strength.
Its competence, confidence, and fitness
Before the ordinary face
Of terror
And the urge to run
From all which it conceals...
Love.
Hold open the lion’s jaws and enter!
This poem is for the laying of
The Stone of Stumbling,
For the placing of
The Cornerstone which the Builders rejected,
For the building of the Triumphant Body
Of a yet more potent talisman
Formed directly from the Word Made Flesh,
A yet much more powerful face
Filled with greater light and truth
To confront all which is still
Not finished yet, all which is still
Yet to come
For as long as the Self and Other
Continue yet to co-arise.
 |
| Japanese |
Hold forth this poem, this talisman
For it is a mirror of your most daring intimacies.
A holy tryst, an intercourse of time and space,
A copulation in which the One Spirit
Ecstatically dies
As it transcends itself,
As it reproduces
The Magical reflection
Of your Original Face
And the Magical Universe.
Look eye to eye with
The Other -- The Self
As you hear and see
This One Voice that is a Vision
Revealed within
And be transformed,
Yea, Eternally Transfigured
And the veil that hides the splendor of your divinity be lifted.
 |
| Buddha in Parinirvana |
 |
| Christ Ascended |
