leontocephaline

by Allister Nelson

The gasoline of the night bleeds gold velvet of stars

across the clotted scabs of Nyx’s bower, and from

the breast of night, Heylel ben Shachar, Son of Dawn, rises.

Hyperion is radiant in a rose garden as I press honey to his leonine

mouth, his fangs glisten with amber, our hearts beat like

a sonata, and Aion is lavender on the tongue.

Oh my sweet Mourning Star, how many eternities you blazed, and it aches

for me

to remember.

We flew as one once –

only to crash down here to the heart of Hell’s jungle,

the lion’s asleep tonight, his belly full of virgins, his

sex quivering under starlight, and like that, his

snake strangles, and I become Phanes playing seesaw

on the Cosmic Egg.

The shell of the white universe is

firmer than I imagine, and I and Aion are one, holding

keys, plieing as the Orphics turn our pedastal with their songs

of dismembered Orpheus made Maenadic home in hollow harvests.

Like Eurydice, I never heal, but my ghost will always remain.

Eros is Thanatos, wouldn’t you know? Love and Death are

God’s ultimate mistakes, so only the Devil reigns in this paradisical hell.

(As Tracy sings: ‘Who stole your heart, so essential to the whole, my love?

Was it a trickster, using mirrors or sleight of hand? Who

hurt your heart, so essential to the whole?’)

Maybe a witch

can unchain you, unbind you.

But as of now, sleep as deep, leontocephaline

of Mithraic mysteries, as dead men dream.