On the other side Cerberus and the implacable judge.
Past the river of woe. Past the river of fire.
Past the river of wailing. Past the gates of
the sun.
"Charon, receive me. The coin is there. Ferry me."
At the gate of the abode of Hades, Cerberus on guard.
The ferryman will take the coin if you are duly buried and convey your spirit to the other side, and the three-headed dog will let you enter but never turn back. The spirit of voyagers is as light as the ego. Heavy egos will sink his barque and are doomed to wait a hundred years on the shore of the wandering lost. The dog of the dragon tail is a fearsome monster that rids anyone, with a very weighty sense of self-importance, of the idea there is a way to get back. But the dog who was the last labor of Hercules was no match for him. So, with some Herculean effort of the mind, perhaps, a survival may be conceived.
Djyever walk an iron railroad rail?
With arms like condor wings for balance high?
Not far, not close, unoccupied twin trail,
except for spirit forms we deify.We totter forth where distance melds the steel.
Geometers have said that place is God.
Perspective's tricks have cozened all that's real.
The parallel don't meet but only nod.I turn around to teeter in reverse.
The misperception sticks. What lies behind,
with track so falsely fused, is time's inverse.
With ear to rail, what grind is there divined?
From track, across the station brick I run.
I fall face down upon the grassy plot.
I wait. My arms embrace oblivion.
The nib pulls inky whorls of figures out
from skin-thin depths of paper's inner thought.
Or vibrant bands of flesh make vowels shout
through tongue and teeth and lip, and words are wrought.
Phantasms seen or heard but never touched,
a genie popped from inky wells of words. If say then see, reality contrived.
If see then say, reality derived.
(Last updated on November 23, 2004 )