ONCE  LONG  AGO

Once long ago I lived in porticos
Lit by the light of azure seas and skies,
There where tall columns stood in endless rows
And the mooned arcades glowed like caves of ice.

 Reflecting the light of a thousand suns,
Those rainbow seas mirrored me paradise,
Enough to move me to a mystic trance
And light a look of magic in my eyes.

There I lived under pale voluptuous moons
Of pleasure, lulled by wine purple seas
And honeysuckle suns…and at my knees
Sat perfumed slaves to fan me in my swoons.

And all they had to do, their only art,
Was try to guess what worm gnawed at my heart.

“You make the tinkling rivers run…”

Hymn to an Unknown God

As the sun on morning dew
Sparkles, making all things new—
We shine for joy, reflecting You.

You make the tinkling rivers run:
How happily they tumble on
Like birds that fall through air for fun!

Under your protection we
Find love and sweet serenity.
Forgive our sins and set us free!

Let the stream of my life wind
Through the green fields of the mind.
Loose the bonds of sin that bind.

Let not the web of song I weave
Be swept away, nor Time bereave
Me of the loved ones I must leave.

Let not this hymn of praise to Thee
Be lost for ever utterly.
When Time is dead, let these words be!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

— Translated from the Sanskrit (Rig-Veda, XI.28)
by Lasha Darkmoon in collaboration with ‘MW’.
Published in Acumen Magazine, September 2006,
under the composite pen name ‘Manna Domini’.

“Who knows what happened first…?”

In the Beginning

Neither Is nor Is Not was,
No when nor where nor why.
There was no sky because
There was nowhere for sky.

No stir of living breath,
No signs of night or day.
And what of death? No death
Or immortality.

The One alone lay breathing
(O ask not when or where!)
In the deep mindsea seething
Unconscious, unaware.

Nothing stretched beyond him,
There He lay all alone!
No one became I Am.
Up rose the Only One!

And in the One grew Love,
The first seed of the soul.
Space then, and stars enough,
And the sky’s blue bowl.

Who knows the truth? who can
Tell how this universe
Bubbled up and began?
Who knows what happened first?

The universal Dancer,
The Dreamer with his dreams,
He perhaps knows the answer
Of all that is and seems.

The why and the wherefore,
What makes Time’s river flow,
He knows the reason or—
Maybe he does not know!

(Translated from the Sanskrit (Rig-Veda X.129)
by Lasha Darkmoon in collaboration with ‘MW’.
Published in Acumen magazine, September 2006,
under the composite pen name ‘Manna Domini’.

Translated from French by Lasha Darkmoon

HYMN  TO  SATAN

O you among all angels consummate,
God stripped of  honour, God betrayed by fate,
Satan, have pity on my long despair!

O Prince of exiles, you who suffered wrong,
Who still undaunted rise up ever strong,
Satan, have pity on my long despair!

You, lord and master of the occult art,
Wise healer of the harrowed human heart,
Satan, have pity on my long despair!

You who, through love, beneath malignant skies,
Give lepers their first taste of paradise,
Satan, have pity on my long despair!

You who, in teaching girls to act like whores,
Bring them to rags and syphilitic sores,
Satan, have pity on my long despair!

You who, on a tall building’s outer ledge,
Propel the sleepwalker toward the edge,
Satan, have pity on my long despair!

You who, to soothe his soul, inspires man
To make the best gunpowder that he can,
Satan, have pity on my long despair!

You who, with death, your darling in delusion,
Invented Hope—that beautiful illusion—
Satan, have pity on my long despair!

O refuge of all who in God’s angry eyes
Have failed the entrance test to paradise,
Satan, have pity on my long despair!

—    §   —

Glory and praise to thee, Satan on high
Who reigned in heaven once, yet vanquished lie
In deepest hell now—plunged in dreams and silence!

Grant that my soul rest one day in thy presence:
There where the Tree of Knowledge spreads its shade,
Building a brave new temple round your head.

---

RELATED VERSE: DARKMOON’S “DEMONIC POEMS”

[1]  DEMON WORLDS
https://www.darkmoon.me/2010/demon-worlds/
youtube presentation: Demon Worlds

[2]  SATANICA
https://www.darkmoon.me/2010/the-succubus/

[3]  SAROTH THE DEMON
https://www.darkmoon.me/2010/saroth/

[4]  HELLVIXEN
https://www.darkmoon.me/2010/hellvixen/

[5]  VAMPIRE NIGHTS
https://www.darkmoon.me/2011/vampire-nights-by-anonyma/ 

“Those eyes like frozen jewels…”

Dancing Serpent

Dear lazybones, how I adore
You in your shining skin!—
It has the shimmer of shot silk
Or frosted hyaline.

Upon your matted mane of hair
As rank as bitter rue
An undulating sea of scents
Wafts billows brown and blue.

And I am drifting like a ship
In quest of distant skies
Dreamily . . .  there oceans roll
And morning breezes rise!

In your blank eyes there’s nothing sweet
Or bitter to behold:
Those eyes like frozen jewels chipped
From iron and pure gold.

*          *          *

Baudelaire: Le Serpent qui danse
http://fleursdumal.org/poem/125

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“Your head, your stance, your girlish grace…”

When  Pleasure  Calls

Your head, your stance, your girlish grace
Are like a landscape in July,
And laughter flutters round your face
Like a cool breeze in a clear sky.

The gloomy souls you graze in passing
Are ravished by your radiant charms:
The health that from your skin comes leaping,
Your shining shoulders and your arms.

Many a time in languid gardens
To which I dragged my vertigo,
I felt a strange, ecstatic burden:
Sweet sunlight tore my heart in two.

And then came Spring with greening leaf
And made me go all sick and sour,
And this is how I sought relief—
I took it out on some poor flower!

And this is something I now wish:
One night, one night when pleasure calls,
Toward the heaven of your flesh
To steal, and like a craven crawl.

To lacerate your lovely flesh,
Punish your breast and pardon it,
And in your harrowed haunches gash
A gaping wound, a gloating slit—

And then at last, ah sweet delight!
Into that mouth made for me new—
All beautiful and sparkling bright—
To spurt my venom into you!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Baudelaire:  À Celle Qui Est Trop Gaie
http://fleursdumal.org/poem/138
(One of Baudelaire’s banned poems).

Sole being I love!—pity, oh pity me
Here in this pit of darkness where I lie,
Here under leaden skies in lethargy
Where terror lurks and blasphemy stalks by.

Six months the frigid sun floats overhead,
Six months the world lies wrapped in blackest night.
The frozen poles are not so cold and dead—
No birds, no streams, no greening leaves, no light.

Horror, horror! There’s none to equal this:
The grim chaotic glooms of hideous night,
The cutting coldness of the cruel sun.
Oh, how I envy simple beasts their plight!—
Dumb creatures sunk in sleep’s paralysis.
How time creeps by . . . how slow my reel is run!

 

The Vampire

You, deadlier than a dagger thrust,
Who into my sick heart have come!
You, sleek and lethal in your lust,
Who like a thousand demons swarm

Into my mind, where you have found
Your bed of sin and your domain—
Bitch! vile bitch! to you I’m bound
As is the convict to his chain!

As is the gambler to his dice,
As is the drunkard to his bowl,
As is the carcase to its lice—
Incarnate bitch! bitch without soul!

I begged the knife to put an end
To all my pain…poison to pour
Its giddy death into my veins,
Yielding the peace I so longed for!

Alas! these two, they sneered at me,
Both poison and the knife so rude:
“You have no right to be set free
From your accursèd servitude!

Fool! if somehow we could contrive
To free you from your wretched pain,
Your kisses would restore to life
Your Vampire’s rotting corpse again!”

— Translated by Lasha Darkmoon

“I might have loved a girl of giant size…”

The Giantess

When Nature long ago in lusty guise
Produced all kinds of forms—monstrous, obscene—
I might have loved a girl of giant size.
I could have been her kitten, she my queen!

Oh, to have seen her shoot up tall and turn
Mature and muscular with exercise!—
The soupy mists that in such monsters churn,
Would that I’d seen them swirling in her eyes!

To roam her craggy contours and to climb
Her legs titanic to her knees sublime!—
And then, when summer’s swoon-inducing heats
Have made her sprawl across the countryside,
To crouch within the shadow of her teats,
Like a small village on a mountainside!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Baudelaire: Le Géante
http://fleursdumal.org/poem/118