Mad to slay the insolent dragon, at hand
the tempered sword, and shod in worn boot leather,
he mounts the redoubtable siege and puts to rout
the fiery beast who founders in base confusion.
The virgin struggles in her cuffs, her tattered dress
imparts a perfect tender little breast.
In soot she shines in desperate sweat, her hands
blistered in manacles but fragile, soft
as errant petals floating on still water.
The beast expires in impotent flames. Our hero
ascends the dormant tail and plunges his blade
again through evil's hide. His stallion stamps
and pulls against its tether, the nostrils steam,
the mouth grinds, its hair a tenebrous gloss.
The old scenarios, rehearsed like ritual,
virtual, on the cusp of experience,
the vital distilled from fancy. No man lives
guided by stars, but gathers sense from abstractions,
perennial percepts rounded into form
and realized, conceptualized in time.
In a certain sense the dragon lives and dies
in splendor, at the hand of prince or pauper,
his massacre no tawdry sacrifice
but symbol of the necessary virtues.
We enter phantasmagoria, manic mozaics
splashed in chaos on the walls of the skull,
or imagine we do, when in the presence of order
so subtle its pristine character appears
as mad disorder. His waking melancholia
is perhaps a deception, his heralded ennui
a mask, his madness a deliberate ruse.
Promethean he hangs, harried by hours
which pass us in innocuous swiftness, days
that crawl like epochs in his mythic mind.
That verse of Blake's, to hold infinity
in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour
may not be merely mystic rigamarole
and could have pertinence here. Sifting old saws
may well disclose more verities than chaff.
Gallant in longcoat, under a veiling hat brim,
walks our derelict protagonist,
or sweeps, a stir among the literati
where women smile behind their hands, a preening
gaggle of powdered forgeries, showcased
accessories of the fawning mock-aesthetic.
He would be thus, but ambulates at sundown
in solitude along a strand where silver
water and light conjoin, his splendorous sea
star chandeliered, loftily scored by gulls.
the tempered sword, and shod in worn boot leather,
he mounts the redoubtable siege and puts to rout
the fiery beast who founders in base confusion.
The virgin struggles in her cuffs, her tattered dress
imparts a perfect tender little breast.
In soot she shines in desperate sweat, her hands
blistered in manacles but fragile, soft
as errant petals floating on still water.
The beast expires in impotent flames. Our hero
ascends the dormant tail and plunges his blade
again through evil's hide. His stallion stamps
and pulls against its tether, the nostrils steam,
the mouth grinds, its hair a tenebrous gloss.
The old scenarios, rehearsed like ritual,
virtual, on the cusp of experience,
the vital distilled from fancy. No man lives
guided by stars, but gathers sense from abstractions,
perennial percepts rounded into form
and realized, conceptualized in time.
In a certain sense the dragon lives and dies
in splendor, at the hand of prince or pauper,
his massacre no tawdry sacrifice
but symbol of the necessary virtues.
We enter phantasmagoria, manic mozaics
splashed in chaos on the walls of the skull,
or imagine we do, when in the presence of order
so subtle its pristine character appears
as mad disorder. His waking melancholia
is perhaps a deception, his heralded ennui
a mask, his madness a deliberate ruse.
Promethean he hangs, harried by hours
which pass us in innocuous swiftness, days
that crawl like epochs in his mythic mind.
That verse of Blake's, to hold infinity
in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour
may not be merely mystic rigamarole
and could have pertinence here. Sifting old saws
may well disclose more verities than chaff.
Gallant in longcoat, under a veiling hat brim,
walks our derelict protagonist,
or sweeps, a stir among the literati
where women smile behind their hands, a preening
gaggle of powdered forgeries, showcased
accessories of the fawning mock-aesthetic.
He would be thus, but ambulates at sundown
in solitude along a strand where silver
water and light conjoin, his splendorous sea
star chandeliered, loftily scored by gulls.
