Annunaki

 

“The Whore of Babylon” by William Blake

 

seven judges
alive in the sky
long before
Greece imagined
the sisters
of Pleiades
fluent astronomers
royal of blood
gods divine of
a fiery flesh
cosmogenic
inducement of
human endeavor
between sacred
rivers whose
waters gave rise to
beginnings

beginnings
of letters
of history
scribed into clay
a cuneiform
seminal literature
power manifest
sparked by a
language designed
for the eye
and it pleased them
those gods who
would scrutinize
men and their
use of the intellect
given with hushed
cosmic breath

cosmic breath
who pronounced
on the wind
these remarkable
people of Sumer
these builders
of ziggurats
masons of
civilization
should cast
fertile crescent
hegemony
fattened through
four thousand years
giving life
a new order of
progress

progress
in its many
manifestations
of change
seven judges
became several
hundreds
in light of new
unholy ways
of transgression
even Gilgamesh
torn and revised
by the claws of
of that dark
whore of Babylon
her evil sown in
distant modernity

 

Shigir Idol

Shigir Idol – 12,000 Year Old Icon Discovered Preserved in a Russian Peat Bog in 1894

towering totem
larch older than stone
burnished skin
browned by tannins
from deep earthen sleep
in an ancient embrace
by the bear of the bog
a most curious effigy
primitive sculpture
who bears seven faces
who’ve watched across
twelve thousand years
even into my life as I live it
a carving quite eager
it seems to communicate
covered complete with
arcane graven glyphs
no one living today
can decipher
and yet I would bet
they bespeak some
primordial wisdom
some omen of warning
some mesolith lesson
of human existence
a message of
feral philosophy
had I but known
might have given me
cause to live differently
better perhaps
for the knowledge
that laid itself down
in heroical sacrifice
secret and safe beneath
terrible eons and
miscarried eras of men
all in hope it might
come back to light
just in time to
recover posterity

Rasennae

 

Decoration of Etruscan Tomb in Tarquinia

 
Etruscan gold primitive bones

raised up iron-age shoulders

lords of the sea tall as Greeks

proto west Europeans

whose women held privilege

a civilized city-state culture

of warrior merchants

in league of its talents for trade

master architects winemakers

metalwork artisans blessed

by exquisite refined ken

of function and form

a Tyrrhenian people who

thrived in the unwritten mists

of Italic prehistory

long before Gaius Octavius

undertook schema for empire

taking significant parts

of their models and myths

for the canons of Rome

a material people whose

ruins and relics still tantalize

all but mere gleanings of tombs

lost to conquest by time

life and language and liturgies

left to meticulous guesswork

of erudite dons who like me

share this bloodline of mystery

veins running sweet with

enigma and echo of origins

favored by warmth

in the whispers of

bronze Tuscan sun

Mycenae

Detail from Mycenaean Mural

 

civilized vestiges

yield to the curious

prodding of time

fingers sifting

hourglass eons

anticipate recognized

feel of some form

hinting provenance

ancient of artistry

present with

resonant powers

of bronze era

armies and kings

marched in thrall

of philosopher gods

to their destinies

sleeping in Homer’s

hexameter buried in

Perseid grounds of

the Peloponnese

sounding cultural

echoes of svelte

cosmopolitan open

society steeped

in shared ethics of

foreign engagement

enriched by diverse

prehistorical wisdom

a legacy passed down

through puzzles of

pieces significant

shards awesome

tumbledown ruins

of fine masoned

civilized vestiges

 

 

From my book Pieces of Wine

Anasazi Vision

“Anasazi Ruins 3” by Sally Bills Bailey

cochineal and indigo

infused warp and weft

bursts of uncursed colors

in mystic geometry

supple tapestries

pendent on portals

cut high into sheer rock

whose outcrops supported

adobe pueblos

where surefooted

earthen skinned

cave-dwellers

climbed to make

contact and compact

to reshape society

join disparate tribes

in confederate worship

of southwestern sun

 

 

thriving peaceably

during dependable eons

of arable seasons

their ambient range

expanded by systemic

engineered roads

over hundreds of miles

connecting their sacred

mesas and canyons

this unlikely ideal

example of civilized

culture stood proud

till that sharp argent dawn

when one woman awoke

stunned to find all across

her familiar wide vista

that she was

completely alone

 

 

(originally posted April 2013)

Conscience

“Sphinx” by Lou Bermingham

 

like the stern couchant sphinx

whose stone leonine paws

left no prints in the sands

or the muds of the Nile

you sit watchful with secretive

maddening patience

knowing the sinks that

hide tombs of the pharaohs

and all my unuttered

raw motives and fears

just watching and waiting

for sands to give way

exposing the meal

you will hungrily make

of my weaknesses

 

 

(originally posted April 2013)

Palmyra

 

“Ruins, Palmyra” by Felix Ziem

 

reconquered again

heaving sands

desert temples

caught in the cruel

teeth of time

a collective insanity

desecrates history

razes warm ruins

tumbledown towers

fragile with secrets

the ancient-most

stories of man

in the dawn of his

own self-discovery

newly conceived of

raw notions of deity

tentative postures

of early society

finding its bearings

without past tradition

no model no lessons

emerging reliant

on nothing but

sun washed ideas

held in undisturbed trust

of much troubled millennia

brought to their end

denied their retelling

erased of all traces

this rampage of

utter destruction

collective insanity

Pre-Columbian

pyramids tangle the jungle
tumbling up stone runic steps
to vine-covered moons
incandescent with dull
mythic pictographs
seething with war-clubs
agrarian splendors
bleed from obsidian sacrifice
feathered serpents uncoil
to bask under rainclouds
that empty their shadows
across gilded ochre
gargantuan blocks seamed
by mystical slavery
wailing in recesses cut
from reliefs boasting triumphs
axle-wheeled calendars
crowded with codices
heavily roll from the mouths
of great cultural chasms
inviting new nemeses
wielding their ocean-borne plagues

“Aztec City” by 7leipnir

Downsizing

Fossil of Archaeopteryx

 

birds trembled the earth
with feet of their fathers
grew leathery wings
from featherless fingers
singing in roars that fell
dead upon lavaflows
back when one landmass
heaved up from one sea
cataclysmically boiling
beneath roiling skies
thick with pyroclast fumes
branding brainstems
with fight or flight
instinct and impetus
sealed within seeds
evolution would germinate
bearing the dinosaur
down through the aeons
to light on your finger

Vesuvius

“Vesuvius, Naples” by Leonid Afremov

 

 

 

unquenchable unquiet cone

tipped in ashclouds and misery

manslaughter crawls down its slopes

upon fat knees of fire to squat by the sea

loosing foul chthonic rivers of liquefied bones

onto cultures unwilling to run or entreat

forgiveness for loving this exquisite soil