Splendid Veins

I raise the stakes
and pound the heart
of the grey old vampire
and the golden upstart.

It was as always
unheard of before,
tasted of novelty
in an antique store.

I spent the day
grazing the lanes
hot in the neck
gazing through window panes.

And came across
some Egyptian dental floss,
and Bob fosse's hands,
in a Spanish hovel of mendicants.

I stepped out of the sun,
into the incense smoke,
I took stock of my bearings,
before she spoke.

"You're the first one here",
in a language I only then understood,
"Browse around,
I'll get you some food."

I only squinted in the dark,
and stared at the walls,
bedecked in masks,
for those full-moon balls.

The March hare on two feet,
the hands that formed a seat,
the snake with the big teat
the sand that kept the desert's heat,

the sarcophagus with one eye,
the eight-ball that would only lie,
the conch shell that could sigh,
a bottle of whiskey from Martian rye,

A book of tales about the stewardship of trees,
and picture of a man that ate with his knees,
For the third eye is the only one that sees,
Thus, is the balm for those inner mountainous lees.

I reached behind a mound of sparkling ash,
whose greenish tinge spoke of Theran origin,
and reached for a vial of a crimson stash
asked of the newly-arrived lady: "For what? Wherein?"

And she crossed herself slowly with a grey sly smile,
"That's for the initiated and high-born,
not for those who only stay a while."
I noted her scorn,

And my ego was piqued,
and when she turned away,
skipped off with her bottle,
strangely hazy in its sway.

And stepped out onto the moors
and rolled down the alleys
and in a confusion of eras
rode the Roman galleys

For Time didn't stop for me to catch my breath
in a rush of millenia
beyond the reach of linear death
I touched a distant shore and

was pulled back to the other end
of an upside down town,
around the corner and over the bend,
and I forgot how to take in air.

And thus I slid down a tree
on to the concrete seat underneath
in a quiet grove I could only see
the black serpents of this world

slither down the branches (from the branches, of the branches)
and make their way to the hollow
pith, where the still fountain
kept its inner glow.

And so here I write,
red ampule in hand,
a warm eternity to spend,
in this quaint end of neitherland.