THE VEIL OF EDEN - Part two

THE VEIL OF EDEN

BY

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

Part II - The Serpent And The Sorrow

Here, I fortify the wine of disease
With my liquid tongue of blasphemies.
For I hath wrestled from the sacred bough
The true lusts of man - these seeds I sowe;
The dark dimensions, the black centuries,
Unto the wind and watch them grow!

I conjure whoredom's flickering flame
And curse the Almighty without shame.
Man, that walketh with the moon
Hayh harkened to the immortal tune
And sought the perfume, without name
That's supped by gods and all too soon

Consumed in thy cup of amethyst, drained,
Unto the end was its vile filth strained
By mortal lips. Now man hast seen
The beginning, the end and the in-between.
The cup of destruction, red-ruby stained!
The perfume of release - our Queen,

Unto Heaven's vault did'st seal
Man's disobedience and conceal
The architecture of man's fate
That strikes at the chains of inviolate
Love, for by wisdom and by zeal
Did man tire of his righteous state.

And thus possessed of gods did'st man
Tear down the lie: no mortal can
Be as a god and walk with might
And rejoiceth in the eternal light.
Yet his bosom yearned and stranger, ran
Into the sorrowful realm of regal night.

And I am the circumference of thy skin
And all that it containeth within,
For I am fashioned to thy breast
And I swim with poisonous unrest.
I am thine own sorrow and thy sin:
Thy north and south, thine east and west!

And many are mine horrors and mine name;
This legion, mirrored, be but the same
Cross of desire in darkness, falling
Unto the circle of lust's calling
Thine golden seraphimed head of shame
That sought the sanctuary. This appalling

Pyramid of thine own making
Found ye sorrow for thy taking
And this dim star, thy profile, cast,
Is mine Royal seal, for here at last
Is an apparatus re-awakening:
A man perfected of his past!

The Song Of The Serpent:

Ah! the fruit is ripe upon the bough:
Shalt desire snatch it from me now
And plant its knowledge on thy brow?

And what mystery of flesh shalt sing
When unto man falls everything?
But lo! 'tis more given when 'tis nothing!

Yea! for all of man's temptation,
The fool regreteth not his action:
This is his sorrow and salvation;

This is his rapture that is sweet,
Soft and fragrant and complete:
But when shalt man with serpent meet

And caress the dim shore of his pain
And break the rhythms of his brain
That's circled by a serpent's chain?

When this night of mitred elegance
In its fleet-footed pageant dance
Doth ache to passion's darkling glance,

That shoots through youthful veins of fear,
For here, love lingers long and drear
Before the God, Love doth revere,

Thou shalt shame thy God before thine eyes,
Thou shalt conjure His immortal cries
And damn His sacerdotal sighs!

O blow wind, yea! eternally blow
For speech and shame and sin follow
The endless summit of man's tomorrow.

But life's miracle that we dare expand,
This tortured madness of command
Hath given scope to understand

The nature of desire, that slept
Firm in thought as sadness leapt
Where the soul of Eden wept.

And thrice was beauty turned to stone,
Banished from her golden throne
To lie with lustful ways, alone.

She dreams, but nothing more than this
Hath fallen unto sleep, to kiss
The awful ache of our mistress.

And mortal unto dying breath
Shalt find a certainty in death,
That death shalt all too sooneth cometh!

..................................................................

I see thy wound, it runneth deep
Through the centuries of sleep;
Deep, deep, so vast and deep
In the fiery fathomless place of sleep.

This little world of man's content;
This infernal fold of past desires,
Death's rapture clings to his element:
Man unto the arm of man aspires.

Here death's feather hath weighed ye right,
And judgement manifold, thy fate
Upon the lips that kissed the night;
Lips of thine own incarnate hate.

Lips that cursed the ancient moon;
Lips of thine unspeakable hell,
Pressed to the prison of the womb
Of thine resurrecting angel.

He giveth up and giveth all,
He rejoiceth in his sad suspension
That dances, beast-like in the hall
And clings to man's incomprehension.

O come, I adore thee, come O come
While death's scent hath found release
From the pangs of falsehood's angeldom,
And the terrors, pray ye now may'st cease!

Sprite:

But hark! what vision of loveliness doth tread
Between the living and the dead?
What frenzy of lust doth speak its name;
What salacious mollusc, revered by shame
Doth come? Its robe cast in the mud,
Its high art a stain of womanhood,
Purple, from the fount of Hell
Like some magnificent Jezebel.
And as nature bows before our Queen;
As the elements flicker, and stir unseen
She assumes Her Royal right, anon,
And comes before us - Babalon!

Babalon:

Blessed be midnight, blessed be shame;
Blessed be the paps that seal my name.
Blessed be the season of desire:
Blessed the unquenchable Holy fire!
This head be death's head, reared for war,
This heart be rotten to its core.
Witch of the moon, whore of the sun:
I am the ghost bloom - Babalon!
I am thy work of silk and gold;
I am thy mysteries untold.
My lips, the claret of the moon;
My breath, the scent of sweet perfume.
My limbs as lithe as panthers, move
Through the Holy abodes of love,
For I am thy midnight jubilation:
Thy dawn, thy noon and thy dusk damnation.
My hair, a stream of lust, unending,
My body yearns to thy ascending
Light; thy palace remains unmoved -
I see it ever thus, unloved.
For I am love, cloaked in desire,
Rich and strange, I burn with fire.
And I desecrate the Holy place
And trample the contours of God's face.
I am thy tempest mind, awake
To bloodless sighings of the snake.
I bear the cup of fornication
That gives thee sweet intoxication.
I, the Queen, who doth assume
Thy purple passions, to illume
Thy body, levelled in the tomb,
Clung to the flower of my womb.
Thou did'st seekest, yet I was found not
In those shapes of shade that rot
Thy hungering, for doth not ye see:
I hath always dwelt in the heart of thee;
Since virgin, thy initial breath
Smote the catacombs of death
And drew forth thine eyes unto the sun,
Ye whispered one word - Babalon!

Sprite:

And through the intricacies of sleep
Doth Babalon in Her whoredom, creep,
To rise on smoke, foul of the air,
Her teeth fixed firm on flesh, to tear
The heart of man, from out his breast,
Softened to Her glance, caressed
By slender hands that woo with lust
And grind the humble into dust.
O star! my litany of desire,
Desolate in seduction's mire
To see thy nakedness crowned with gold
Upon Love's altar, where of old
Did'st Babalon cherish unto death,
The ache of man that lies beneath
The splendour wrapt, the sapphire tomb
Of virtue veiled deep in Love's gloom.

Babalon:

O desirable man, I give thee rest
From thy hierophantic quest;
I warm thy flesh and give thee ease,
Trimmed in the wrappings of disease,
Where nothing moves, nor shall it stir
The masked sentinels of sleep and fear.

Sprite:

Animal-sighing - we are all dark now
As man passes into that which he cannot know!