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Mandaran Vigil

                   Exploding flares
in the darkness of the mind expanding
like the universe it is a part of ...
mindful of Rumi & that other man who
cast the Zohar into the flames
which could not annihilate
the pale embers of
serpent knowledge curling into ash
O red rose in the hand of a god!
O black feather fallen from the sky!
I address myself to the seven who never
                              sleep,
     masters of the whirling robes,
     in the name of the celestial hat
     & the tassels which swirl -
I looked into the mirror and see instead
                 a pane of clear
                       glass,
no broken stair's grievance
  but a heart unleaving itself
    like an artichoke disappearing
into the invisibility of its own
              original essence.
So would I tear all the gold from
       wrists & necks & under glass
       counters gleaming & melt it
       into a river to be poured back
       into the earth from which it
       came.
     Like a madman burying precious jewels
I rush backwards down the mobius strip of
                                 the future
hoping to meet myself coming the other way.
       As I turn on one foot
       describing an endless circle
       around myself
       a god beings to laugh thru the cave
                        of my mouth
       & I myself have become a golden shofar
       calling you to witness the mark of
                              Cain returned
       to the finger from which it sprung
          palpable as a violent wind or
             a flame to its fire.
O inward shimmering on the altar of self!
O outward glimmering of a distant star!
I turn past your sly cornice in the sky
& behold my own head held in the severed
                                 hand!
       Let the tines of all forks
          vibrate in unison
       as the uncertain foot
       is withdrawn from the bloodred
                             carpet
             before the unblinkng eye
       in the dark chambers of His imagery ...
          A finger stirring a glass of water
       makes a wave run across the Pacific
          and all karma rushes backwards
       like shadows of migrating birds
                in the rising sun of
             a last minute pardon or cosmic
                                 jailbreak.
        All eggs are perfect revenant specters
                    of unconscious illumination/
        Who said phantom ships never make port?

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