XVII. The serpent’s skull

In the sixth gyre of the Age of the Good Remainder:

A multitude of believers follow the dog-headed beggar
Over darkening thresholds and under sheer canopies
Of ceremonial pavilions standing fast in the
Churning current.
The rushing darkness is partially broken by reflections
Of a shower of gems through the spiked wheel.

After arguing with a bull-throated pagan disguised as
A hermit,
The Moskeel in a threadbare coat and a crown of nails,
With the devil on a leash, gives up his kingdom
For a broken cup, a basket of quail, and a branch
Of oranges.

Entangled hands form into an inverted bowl
That hides an alabaster box that holds
The serpent’s skull carved from green-tinged ivory.

XVI. The noble dwarf’s watchman

In the gyre vaunted of the Age of Eichenblon’s Crater:

The pyre of the mob does not satisfy the vengeance
Of the excommunicated tribe of the Northern Deep.
The subtle blood of this breed becomes infirm
With smoke;
They tremble behind a line of unnatural towers
And draw their harmless swords against themselves.

After Orion’s third sister marries the noble dwarf’s
Watchman,
Her indifference becomes reluctance and regret.
They are parted as her carriage passes slowly
Through the gate of recent woe, never to meet again.

Opposite a vine-clustered chair two faces are depicted,
One in the forlorn grandeur of eternal marble,
The other in the dead shrewdness of sullen iron.

XV. The poet’s wife

In the seventh gyre of the Age of Broeudhe-bas:

The poet’s wife pregnant with eminent consequences,
Digging dreams in a narrow circle of fading light,
Loses faith in her star and yields up a ghost.
Winter’s first message freezes her inside her coat,
A garment of parched grass and scraps of paper.

Two wild beasts uniformed with brilliant cloth,
Strong in talents, character and property,
Rise in opposition to an antiquated system
Gathered round a dangerous madman.

Three half-brothers sleep in the grasp of a
Curious transformation;
After three years, they will be unearthed
From their tombs
In the last gray hour of Saint Dymphaena’s morning.

An Unpleasant Dialect

When I wrote that Nihr Avna-attu knows twenty-seven human languages, I perhaps should have mentioned that he/she knows sixty-two inhuman languages as well. Or so he/she told me, and then demonstrated one of those languages with a sentence that sounded like a teapot whistling on a television channel full of static, but with a strong animal nasality modulating it. Very unpleasant to my earth-born ears. Nihr Avna-attu said it was from a dialect of intelligent beings that lived on a planet too distant from our world for any kind of contact with earthlings. Their species died out about seven hundred years ago.

I wonder if referring to Nihr Avna-attu as “it” would be less clumsy than “he/she”? Or would it be more confusing? I wonder which would be more accurate?

XIV. Falling salamanders on the wing

In the third gyre of the Age of Eichenblon’s Crater

The bald standard-bearer marked
By the severity of her injury:
She hides herself in manacles and loses the use
Of her hands
For the duration of the Winter of Stone Grass
And Brown Ice.
When the links of frost come unhinged,
Her grasp is re-built
By the clock-makers of a far city in the West.

While following a strange course through black mist
On the path to catastrophe on the mountain of shadows,
She is trusted by falling salamanders on the wing
With no gentle sentiment in their ponderous eyes.

An unseen hand digging between mortar and stone
Yields a ghost with a dragon’s claw scribed
Upon his funereal bands.
The countersign is the facsimile of a scarlet ornament.

XIII. A blueprint from a madmen’s reveries

In the clauted (cleated?) gyre of the Age of the Nascent Vaunthald:

With a blueprint from a madmen’s reveries
And the hands of the forerunners of Thessarret,
A wanderer builds a new house of pale green jade.
The stone walls cast their shadow upon a stately cedar
In the old castle garden of Aureospa’s grave.

War will come to the hollow streets of the outer verge:
The cloud-fringed vanguard fights in silence,
Bearing black dishonor along with misfortune,
Scorned by all those who battle beside them.

At the appointed hour between three citadels,
The ashen-haired servant with tattooed hands
Will claim the natural shelter of her attending blood.

XII. Overtaken by the Dawn-breaker

In the second gyre of the Age of Four Wandering Moons:

A critical juncture will be overtaken by
The Dawn-breaker;
Queer and base, his sublimity is barely perceptible;
Cunning and brave, no-one will judge him at his
True value.
Three unimpeachable historians will call him villain,
A shabby clown performing in tapestried parlors.

In iron shoes and a steel jacket with prismatic
Dorsal plates,
A prisoner languishing in the cavern of a hundred walls,
Retains stewardship of ten thousand illuminated
Manuscripts.
Light and glory, honors and commendations, reward
Her perseverance.

Parched encroachments into every water on earth
Will be forestalled by a deep reservoir for the
Entire planet;
The lion’s share for two million in the sacrificed
Territories.

The Friendly Skeptic

I feel I need to make at least one mention of the person who is helping me put the ecteiroglyps on the computer and on the internet. She won’t allow me to mention her name, she says this is not about her, this is my story. Nihr Avna-attu calls her my chirographer, and Tsitao-utna calls her my transcriber, and when I asked this person how I should I name her in these accounts, she suggested I call her the Big Fat Ignoramus. I told her I would not use that term and she said why not, it’s fairly accurate. She pretends she doesn’t know much about computers, but she knows a lot more than I do. I don’t really like computers; I like books and paper and my Olivetti typewriter, which is blue with thick white keys, clunky and chunky–and it’s not even electric!

I will probably refer to her as my transcriber, although she does more than that. Most of our ideas about how to use the computer are hers. And she is also a good editor who helps me sort out the texts of the ecteiroglyphs, which come to me all jumbled up when I first write them out.

Ga-ukogomen calls her the Friendly Skeptic; she doesn’t believe in him or the other members of the Lorwolm. Like me, she has tried to be an atheist. She says she doesn’t mind thinking of herself as an atheist, but only up to a certain point. This I understand pretty well, because I am an unbeliever up to the point where I believe.

XI. A summer’s marriage-feast despoiled

In the dialected gyre of the Age of the Middle Gohlguanarchy:

From a summer’s marriage-feast despoiled in reel
And rout,
The knight stands aloof; he wears upon his shield
The puppet crown
And slays with his sword fifteen long-suffering captives.
In thirty long years he will defeat twelve generals,
Burn ten churches, demolish ten temples, and build
Ten cities.

His denatured bride, widely praised and most
Closely guarded,
Arises with his silver-bedecked allies to supplant him.
The perfect cavalier cannot comprehend this opportunity
For ambush;
In the absence of the sun, fountains spring like a cloud
Of fire.

In a great arc she brings down the cursed hilt of
His saber,
Forged in witch’s oils burnt green, blue and white,
Which fractures his unwary skull but does not kill him.

X. Quaint and infamous traditions

In the itinerant gyre of the Age of the Yequirthed Crisis:

Quaint and infamous traditions prevail after
The quakes
Caused by the gravitational anomalies
Of the Y1 asteroids.
Sailors melt down the entrails of manatees for salt;
Soldiers carve hawthorn for bullets and scatter
Poppy seeds and amaranth before the thrones of infants.

Such is the fruitfulness of the original chaos:
Green child-like primates, clothed with flames,
Living along rivers and streams, bury their coffins
Filled with rich food and eat dirt from their tombs.

Gypsy bandits paint the thumbs of sleeping travelers
Held in place by a circle of rice paper and javelins,
Secured by their necks and shoulders with violin strings.