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The Liturgy of the Literary Diabolist: Creative Platypus



The Liturgy of the Literary Diabolist

I reached into the river and pulled out meaning
While Cratipus shook his head and Zeno
Scribbled figures in the sand
Sunlight glinted from a thousand facets
Each facet a world of infinite points
Untraversable by flesh and blood

Forging what we stole
Ta-tom-ta-tom
Forging what we stole
Ta-tom-ta-tom-tom-tom

Rape of the Earth, Apollo, Apollo!
Smintheus the destroyer.

What’s that Thom?
Still mooning over Jean Veudrel
Morte douze ans aux les Dardanelles?
Get up and write,
-Now there’s a lad-
All this pining will drive you mad.

And Jean Veudrel is dead
And Siegfried Sassoon is dead
And G.B. Smith is dead
Wiseman’s in the middle of the fleet
-Thank God-
There’s safety in numbers

I tried to tell you then
Don’t go that way
But I don’t think you really heard me
On the night when all the candles were lit
You were hell-bent on going
And the room was dark
I tried to tell you it’s not the sort of thing respectable people do
Consorting with spirits
I don’t know why I wasted my breath
For an hour’s conference with the Dead
Are you even listening?
I am

All the good boys are in their graves, Charles;
All the good boys who died in the mud and in the blood.
Can’t live up to them, can you?
-In the mud and blood.

As Hyperion to a satyr
You gods rule by beauty

And the spheres still turn in music
As when the worlds began
While Wotan rests upon his spear
Dreaming dreams of Man.

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