Lemons From A Lime Tree

Lemons from a Lime Tree Eighteen Short Poems

By Frater Pyramidatus

Copyright Adam Newman 2009

A Basilisk Dream Adurations of Abra Melin Choronzon’s Choir Cybele Dwelldom I was Aiwass Once Our Name is Legion Pan’s Promise Reward Starkeeper Statuesquely Fourfold The Black Rose The Caduceus The Labyrinth of Leviathan The Lyre of Fire The Only Poem of Lonely The Precipice of Pain Trees

A Basilisk Dream Disgruntled sat the tepid beast, On steaming rocks and twisted dead tree, It glanced about its ashen feast, And wondered what to eat, Perhaps Nero, Picasso, Churchill or you, Or Hitler, or Peter Pan, or God’s very shoes. The teeth of Basilisk diamond sharp yet crooked, His haunches a testament to centuries decay, Eyes of bloodshot fire and bent spine a winged, This monster would never have its day, To chew on coals of souls for ever more, To only find sustenance on earth impure.

Adurations of Abra Melin The moon was waning into crescent silver, A Beast did conjure in his lair, All pervading sky of heaven, a pristine quiver, Rushed through Boleskine and raised his hair. Aleister lied victim to grim devotion, The Abra Melin was deadlocked to begin, The tight gripped Phoenix Wand was motioned, About the symbols on dragon’s skin.

A candled perimeter or pentagram, A ruby ring adorned his hand, The incense by the breeze was fanned, The evocation, the master plan. Vivid portal did sit and tightly wait, A host of demons five-thousand wide, The triangle, the blood, the gate, Operatic instruments of the other side. Upon the half-dead embers of raven coal, Crowley did sit the gum Arabic of his desire, To give form to the spirit was his goal, Then to banish Asmodee into formless fire. To work magick was his stern-eyed expectation, To consume Aleister’s soul the infernal delectation.

Choronzon’s Choir Formless jabberings throng the endless pit, Of sorcery, warlocks, witches and devils, The eunuchs of Sodom encircle it, And billions of poetasters ceaselessly revel. Choronzon is the dweller of void and abyss, To stare at him is suicide, To lend one’s mind irredeemably amiss, It turns fire to hate, and truth into lies. We dare not join the insane mass, We run from here and we run fast, Over bloodied glass and windless marsh, ZAZAS ZAZAS NASATANADA ZAZAS. Babblings and musings, scattered incoherent dance, An eyeless vulture floats down foetid floods, We feel the Choronzon, his talons, his glance, Disperses all into blindness, to poisonous blood. Stillness is it’s clandestine foe, If one is quiet and motionless, And statue still from head to toes, Then maybe an exit from this mess. For Choronzon is contradiction unholy, He is never for you, and never for me.

Cybele He laid me on a velvet bed, All my secrets softly spread, Apart! Every nuance of my condition, At the whims of his position, I was a Princess, an Empress, His to possess and his to caress, Flourished out on the silky deck, The words of love that laced his neck, Posing at me the querulous question, As I lay silently nesting, Touching me like a Prince, His to hold ever since, A furtive, fleeting and fanciful flourish, My secret heart his hands did nourish, Me I am a simple harlot, Yet he picked me out a Queen, As I slid around serene, I the truest Harlequin, Immaculate, no stain of sin, All my secrets he exposed, Because of questions that he posed, Onsets of the seductive query, Would make another very teary, And then he started to get hard, And picked me out, His Tarot Card!

Dwelldom Born in the township Leamington Spa, Wishing dearly to sail afar, All notions of time killed by the scythe, The little boy could now unwind. He floated off to Mexico, Through the archipelago, With the star and with the sceptre, A youth pressed on with feet unfettered. Walked on through to ancient Egypt, And well he slept in some old crypt, Brandishing fire and lust and sword, A proud young man with great reward. He trotted off to blue Sicilia, Talking tongues still not familiar,

Lancing with a golden spear, The magician now forgot the fear. A donkey trek through Indo-China, With a Rose called Rex Regina, To the chime of crazy sistrum, His parents gone he dearly missed them. And so returned to Angel Land, To help some people understand, The Gordian knot of silken string, Our mystic now could clearly sing. Promptly vanished to bold New York, On the back of a silvery hawk, Unleashed the grip of eldritch snake, A merlin, a madman, a prophet awake. But now he’s buried beneath the Earth, Below the trees, below the mirth, Above there is no barren stone, To say the poet lived alone.

I was Aiwass Once The belly of the clock struck its demon sound, And the Victim in close-breathed anticipation, Wandered what wand his pen had become and how, Whilst Rose Kelly’s eyes revealed no turncoat hesitation. The minister of Hoor shook twice this vapid hotel room, A makeshift temple, honeymoon, panorama and portal, This minister knew well the souls he was to woo, Aiwass cared not for these two for he was irredeemably immortal. And yes the words of sheet lightning and sweet despair, Did conjure but scratchings on a fervent parchment, Of the Law of Agape and all things denounced unfair, Aleister’s crystal mind plunged into a raven black lament. Schizophrenic musings about the tip of the iceberg, Whose ownership of words heaven sent? This water of words has risen to submerge, A crown of reason that under waves went. Three days of this NEMO could endure, A pen not his own and world to climb, Three thousand years of Thelema and more, Produced from the chasm in one man’s mind.

Our Name is Legion The Man in Black, roughshod, he slowly walked, The dark forest roads, a menagerie of branch and leaf, His feet pitiful sore as inside his head the voice did talk, And cursing moonlight magnified his grief, A homeless man on the endless tarmac, The blood and sweat upon his back. He sought the midnight daemon undeterred, Drew in dark breath to heed the call, He flung his man-roar to disperse the hidden herd, “Prince of demons: BELPHEGOR”, His voice was lost in tree-twisted hate, For the lunatic vigil had not time to wait. An inhuman grunt splintered his spirits, From behind a rusted fence it shook, The beastly noise did shake his wits, So disregarding the courage it took, Over this with tight clenched teeth, He jumped the rampart and faced the fiend. Although he faced the smitten heathen, Only a whisper, “OUR AME IS LEGIO…”, Upon his senses fell the dark windless scene, Which did not explain the shaking trees, Further into Nature’s madness he stalked, More distant from sanity he slowly walked.

Reward Rockish surveyance, the harsh terrain, Citadel of gloom on the silhouettes’ plain, Inclines of quartz and little relent, From heed to heel a doomed ascent. Entirety of navigation, fugitive chance, Scaled labyrinth of stone not avalanche, Icy spectres that earthward slide, The climb is high yet is not wide. Watery spews sent skyward, Cutting chills into the blood, Splintered through by hateful hurricane, Whirling winds of icy pain. And such empyrean did not expect,

The man and tent to stand erect, Less still a summit be so crowned, By so few men of such renown. Rippled laughs beneath the void, Softly stirred to not annoy, Constellations of mythic folk, Whom simply witnessed wisps of smoke. Men of nerve and eager feet, Sherpas press ganged from the fleet, Princes they could not defeat, Gods defying all retreat, Beasts that lived with the elite.

Star Keeper Ineffable gravity pinned the mountain of books, By the plum table and spinning astrolabe, Whilst the meteor plummeted, turned and shook, And the eyeglass lent witness to his craft, The Star Keeper was as dazed and confused, As the distant galaxies upon which he mused. The paper plan had twelve charted houses, From the ram to the fishes and back again, To the conjunct Mars-Pluto that now says, Not quite what the Star Keeper had in his brain, He fiddled his compass and threw hands in the air, His psychocosmic conspiracy led to despair. Trine and sextile and retrograde Saturn, Albus and white tincture and Scorpio too, Done nothing more to open the pattern, Even Lucifer would have not a clue, For the Star Keeper had utterly riddled his head, Despite all the books he had read whilst in bed.

Statuesquely Fourfold Do what thou wilt, the whole of the Law, The will to love is the law to live, From your lion’s head to bullish paws, I behold the silence the stone mouth does give.

Stern eyes are defiant and strong, Their coral pupils pierce through vain desires, Although icy dead their spectrum pure and long, Is over deserts that throng the intermittent fires. The proud carved Nemyss of night, Sweeps over and protects, A half-dead soul of light, The brain of Sphinx’s chaos nest. Within the stone one’s heart imagines, What greater depth of universal plumb, The Sphinx must dive to, and what is given, In stony blocks of love to everyone. But the last word on the Fourfold Sphinx, Is something never spoken, This is something true methinks, Because words are often broken.

The Black Rose I never felt unique, just lay beneath, My brother roses, indistinct, Myriads of crimson cousins formed my wreath, To escape obscurity was my only wish. Orphaned from the start, the first black rose, Of Mother Nature’s puppetry, I pondered my fate in the garden, Indeed, one less alchemical mystery. The gardener god, that fiddled with, My close relatives, the red, the yellow, the white, Passed me by with ignorance, How I wondered of the pure sunlight. A home of my own, some cozy pot, Perhaps, pride of place in a summer show, Where admirers would point and charm, Saying, “Look my friend, the First Black Rose!” For days, I lacked space of my own, Forgotten as a patch of earth, or useless weed, My colourful companions competed their crowns, Ashamed of me as some alien seed. One week did pass, and my hope did fade,

Of my Red Roses I felt betrayed, I settled down to die, it is true, Hoping next year to bloom anew. Providence graced me with a furtive hand, Of attention and love was I almost starved, A scissor-snip here, and a scissor-snip there, And before I could blink I was suddenly bare. My first memory of independence, As I peered aside to enjoy the view, Was just how scared and naked I sensed, No longer cramped by my querulous crew. With dew of my own, bathed deep in the sun, I bent back my head and petalled a yawn, Now free of my cousins, my life had begun, My countenance odd, yet still had I thorns! A bee came and kissed me, that very first year, And muttered with a laugh straight to my ear, “What flower is this? Now what have I here? Are you normal, have I something to fear?” But before I could answer, the creature had flown, Disconcerted, I guess, by such a strange sight, To nestle in a more familiar home, A stone’s throw further into the night. Enough of my youth, and its sorry tale, The question you ask, is how did I know? Although bereft of twins, do you wail, What hubris, what pride to jest such a show! One virtue of Roses is habit of truth, The proudest of my bed fellows, reddest of all, Did utter in fear, and fixed me a look, “You will never be found in a gardening book!” “I have spoken to bees, from over the sea, Who sing to me tales of flowers and trees, The oldest of which did comment to me, There is no rose alive with likeness of thee.” And so did I trust in what he did say, Before he was pruned and ushered away, I admit once I did, so much was my fear, From inside did fall a diamond of tear.

The Caduceus Twinned about the rod of almond, Basilisks bask in the winged sun, That crests the staff and ends the wand, The serpents are counter charged, yet one. A love-hate affair, their eternal stare, Riveted to one another yet star far apart, Fangs of venomous light we must beware, As the snakes ascend the crystal shard. Twisting, turning, grappling, fleeing, These lizards condemned to eternally wrestle, A helix of force, fire, fantasy and feeling, Yet the core of this tool is adamantine metal. Who is to end this immortal struggle? Who is to burst this dragons’ bubble?

The Labyrinth of Leviathan O the noble Labyrinth of human heart, The concurrent aeons of Horus-Maat, Some little boxes made of card, And bloody swords of crystal shard. Leviathan is the Lord of the Labyrinth, The god I serve in this world and yours, For he just laughs whilst people sin, With his sapphire grin and marble claws. For as he stands in Job is not quite true, A sea monster like Nessie he is not, He quietly resides in the minds of me and you, Like electric dreams he is quite robot. He is in one sense The Tree of Life, And revolves eternally in devil-dark abodes, His lasering mind sharper than all the knives, With it he unplucks the first black rose. This flower is crystal and from a mountainous gathering, It rests upon his Third Eye, This adamantine bloom touches secret histories and blitherings, And with it he unveils the skies.

The Lyre of Fire Legends come and go like fleeting sands, But some stay myths for eternity’s fire, The Bennu Bird with taloned hands, Lays rest its age old memory, its desire, It makes a bed of spices sweet, To ignite to a rapturous musical beat. No fear of death, no sense of pain, The song of love is not in vain, For the Phoenix golden shall rise again, And the water of the sky inevitably wains, A new life ushers from ashes: CREATION, An old song scatters and smashes: IDEATION. Our golden friend is flight eternal, Solitary she ascends the glistening ashes, She is denied the life of water maternal, Knowing to repeat her earthbound crashes, For the Phoenix golden shall rise again, For the Bennu Bird is JESUS my friend!

The Only Poem of Lonely Whilst a poem sits in the psyche of man, It all depends on hourglass styles, How long to fall from mind to hand? As the roses explode from time to time. One certain Victim, he did sit, Beneath a silver tree, And as like butterflies his thoughts did flit, He said, “What word to exemplify thee?” A Grim Reaper of his mind’s fancy, Asked a simple yet stone grave riddle: “How to write, when so young and bright, If inside the skull is nought but night?” The Victim posed a moment then lips did move, “I will only speak the truth – to the scroll beneath, The truth – it beams, it burns, it blooms – THE TRUTH. And despite thee… I resolve to pen under a silver tree.” But this rested his foe not, rose the impenetrable gloom, The bony knuckles creaked the tool of death, Grim Reaper raised the blood-sharp impending doom,

And the scribe pondered his body as soon to be in a mess. He braced his body for the blow, He wondered who would watch the show, The only thing he did not know… Into what chasm his head would go. (The strike was made, the body flayed.) One only wonders what the scroll held, And how much blood is on it, But if you lean closer and take a smell, You may already guess you’ve got it! (By the poet Lonely.)

The Precipice of Pain The sun crests its almost endless waves, It is how odd how it behaves, Perhaps The Fool will taste some air, Infused with its love and touched by it stare. He stands atop a silver, sun soaked cliff, The only questioned pondered is ‘what if?’ ‘What if I jumped: would I always fall?’ ‘It is indeed I stand do stature-star tall.’ (I am The Fool, I am the clown, I have always been around, You know me from the aeon’s-day past, You know me from the face in the glass.) He wanted a diamond supernova, He did not know it would never be over, Beneath his peninsula of roughshod pain, For he had not the energy to go back again.

Trees Dewdrops from a poet pen, Became this paper’s only friend, Satyr tears that slowly fell, From psyche’s forge to inky well, Ardour, anarchy, endless appliance, Blossomed through to eldritch science, And by degrees of scribal stealth, He laced the depths of oaken shelf, Orchards of praise, avenues that thrill, Beneath the clouds of this pencil.