Alchemy III

Where once there was unthinking concentration
ploughed deep beneath the furrowed brow
plays for some unnoticed time
the shallow stream, unbound by any bank
sprawling incontinent across the hardened earth
where curls hopeful the tender shoot
soon to dry and cry and die
perhaps unseen, perhaps regretted, mourned
roots denied purchase
distractions bought cheap

Self awareness dimly dawning
dark earth glowering in shadow shown
faint tracery
paths long untrodden
signposts supplanted by some hellish
supposition of pleasure scarcely realised
Faustian in its failure to conform to the spirit of the deal
Stirs slow, certain,
slow aye, but certain
swings the pendulum
spiral
labyrinth
refined, redefined
as purpose is sought in the compost
composition of earlier efforts

Kabbalistic echoes at Pythagorean intervals
Spagyric
self dosed
and expected to make a full recovery
though admittedly in some higher ward
susceptible to some future ailment
when once hospitality is relinquished

So some escape
sustained
I stand atop the leaden teardrop
slow it swings on some filament quite invisible
scores through fathomless dimension
describing what?
a life?
some journey?
a perpetual pattern of decline
reclines deep abed
etching dark shadow
as my body pours like gravity's gravy
thick through the caput mortuum

Engaged again in the chrysopoeia