a lone son of shem standing
atop the mountains of
my father’s youngest brother
surrounded by these angles, jutes and
saxons without statues left to smash-
i am perplexed as their knotwork beasts.
i am the weaver of tapestries that recount the cosmos-
sacred beyond the voice’s boundaries -
and my straw-headed cousins make them carpets and
charming adornments – they use
my glass for mirrors and
shroud those in scarves.

my darker cousins have not been welcomed here-
japheth still glowers at ham-
and so alone i contemplate perfectly
with crystalline stillness
the ashes of alexandria
the flames a gorgeous rapture -
an orgy of fire fed from sages:

HOLY HOLY HOLY AS THE SN
LUMINOUS – THE SACRED SL

the truth of the living god incinerated–
returned again to ashes – collected,
made into neat round cakes of soap -
laboratory madmen concocting oils from the ghosts of flowers
to annoint the soapcakes with the essence of falsehood.
then packaged, stamped with bars to be quantified forever
to be named forever
to be given one definite pattern like an electric signal
but never, ever a candleflame or a butterfly or
the great flickering beasts inhaling oxygen into their white hot -
consuming, consuming, shitting out only carbon-
the only history to tell the desert.

japheth you are a fool!
a simple laborer!
a dumb ox for plowing fields and
dressing in armor to fight in arenas for animal skins to entertain your tribe.

where are my brothers and cousins who
in dark crypts we spoke in whispers when
the mysteries revealed we swore – we swore – we swore.

now the books are burnt and you have forgotten -
and search in vain in japheth’s lonely markets -
your younger cousin’s gold a hollow shell -
his coins are ghosts – his light a phantom.
true light is like the SL and
burns the eyes like alexandria – and
the fool behind them into dust and ashes.