two poems

Excerpt from the upcoming poetry collection Sloughing the Shroud from Anxiety Press

by Julian Thumm



Decanting the homunculus

 

“Does confidence in your birth fill you so?”

Virgil, The Aeneid

 

i.

Of intentional if not natural birth,

I, homunculus,

subhuman error

conceived in the vain delusions of Paracelsus,

ancient father of toxicity.

Cursed is the heart that has the heart to create

this scion of the strictures of dubious alchemy.

 

For 40 days the vile semen of lowly man

in a steaming womb of venter equinus

is left to putrefy

then nourished with caution

on honey & milk

& the arcanum of human blood.

 

Mandragore I am,

the little man of the gallows

born of the convulsive spasms

of the hanged man’s seed

& from the earth below the gibbet

sprouts the mandrake root in human form,

filamentous & slightly narcotic:

“With thy sword

Trace three circles ‘round the root,

dance as though possessed,

& speak words lewd and vile.

Cut the root while facing west

& feed the form on earthworms

& the seed of lavender.”

 

Born of the alchemist’s

Faustian addiction,

arcane & anomalous,

I, homunculus,

the perversion of pure spirit

corrupted into mortal form,

umbilical vestige of our terrestrial origin,

slime of the earth,

man as rough sketch

etched on ambition

& trusted to the vagaries

of the sextant & astrolabe,

inauspiciously identified 

will-o’-the-wisp

lightning & shooting stars

reluctantly divine the celestial configurations

under which the wretch was drained

from his fecal vessel.

 

Decanted from the potent elixir

of my septic suspension

to degradation anew.

Methanol transmuted

to formaldehyde & formic acid.

My first deadly breath,

the tingling kiss of ants, nettles & the Roman asp.

 

Blessed the broken homunculus

sainted & cursed in equal measure

by his own feeble reckoning,

baseness of birth

& the great disparagement.

 

ii.

I, homunculus,

born of the narcotic root

& intoxicating swill,

gently decanted to

soften the fibrous tannins

& lift the bitter sediment

that lingers from

the hanged man’s

earthy ejaculate.

Alive, perhaps,

with heart & liver

—the Aristotelian seats of

feeling & thought

or mimicry if nothing else—

Through dubious art I'm born

& so art is embodied within

but bloody is my art,

& bloody will be my end.

 

Uprooted & drained

to a life of delusive potential,

a cavalcade of cryptic choice

& vacuous apologies.

My deformities no cloak

for apathy or wickedness

—Oh the minds of malformed men:

princes, kings, & emperors,

philosophers & orators—

castrated, blind, & barely breathing,

foul without, but fair within

…all the better to contemplate

the whims of the well-formed man.

 

Nymphs, sylphs, pygmies & salamanders,

my elemental place

in deluded cosmology

allows me to sing the poem

of the subhuman

in spite of the stunted tongue

that stutters my speech.

 

Conceived as the alraun doll,

imprisoned & displayed,

my mythic dress

provocative & ludicrous.

Protection I provide,

good fortune, bounty

& the gift of foresight

that grasping masters

so desperately desire.

 

But Drak to some,

the money dragon

vestigial tail aflame,

I am owned

& serving rapacious men.

I query, perhaps reluctantly,

the potential

of my deformities.

 

iii.

I, homunculus,

born without gestation,

but with my lords’

vain attempts

to humanise the root

& nurture it

on superstition,

religious fervour,

& ignorant biology.

 

But even bathed in wine

& arcane nourishment,

reports of my foresight

unfortunately

have been too much

exaggerated.

Rumours of prognostication,

legerdemain & protection

of the plentiful harvest

…all imagined, delusory.

 

The grapes they wither on the vine,

the wrath becomes too palpable

& finally I’m seen,

a corroded link in the chain of being

only good for shameful crimes

& brutal, barren

deformities.

 

Paracelsus

& men of his ilk

chair my symposium of sickness

& picking through my defecation,

malignant but enlightening,

the ruins of their ziggurat

cannot be denied.

 

The saintly visions of Zosima,

the gleeful torment of Job

& the humbled father of toxicity,

some mangled anthroparion

in lockstep with the manikins

who lurk unseen amid shadows & gloom

& finally exposed, the homunculi logic:

 

I, homunculus

am born of hubris

without explanation

& ultimately, purpose.

Morbid erotic

 

In thrall to the floral shroud of death

that dazzles the mind

& swells the lizard loins,

the fecund fleshy blooms

& lovingly crafted botanicals,

the perils of the Alnwick Garden

—belladonna, oleander, & foxglove—

impart their death’s-head narcotic

under the sensual intellect

& play of decomposition.

 

Why fight the flaccid attempt to retain

our feeble humanity when offered

the taste of transcendence?

Libidinous view of the living corpse

& fingertips that trace the erotic ink of morbidity,

agony & disdain give way to submission

beneath the leather boot, painted hip,

metal sceptre—the enticement of dark.

 

Idioglossic praises sung to the monarch of the void,

a moth deluded in lemming frenzy

raging towards the event horizon

& desperately willing to embrace the horrors,

to pursue the whispers of the underworld

the untold tales of a heart-shaped lock

& rumours of a sacred key

some 10,000 miles distant.




Photo of Julian Thumm

BIO: Julian is a poet from Melbourne, Australia. He studied literature and professional writing and now works as a corporate shill, selling his corrupted pen to the highest bidder. His poetry is an attempt to make sense of a lifetime of bad choices. His work has been published in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, The Rye Whiskey Review, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Beatnik Cowboy, Spillwords, and Fixator Press. His debut chapbook Gutter Stew is available through Alien Buddha Press.  

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four poems