notes on Éliphas Lévi's "Magic"

Notes on Éliphas Lévi's "Magic"

1.

He re-veiled

the tablets,

the meaning of reveal

these words to keep you

from the luscious stone

and not even he could find his way

back, water now, endless wanderings

to the door of her room

and she would come to his door

as if they were waiting

as if to say in some way

simple as forgetting itself

that grand organ of silence.

Jordan, meaning descend, flow down.

A word, a door

to the river.

Undo all this revealing.

2.

Silence never forgets.

So what do we mean

empty headed geometers

tracing our difficult way

quote this book at your own peril

there are no quotation marks

the captial letters are temples

and the sentences are cities

punctuated with obelisks and by the

sphynx.

Red jasper

for courage

the black moon’s

shadow banished by my headlights

back into the trees.

Silence never forgets,

that’s what Liszt heard us

the philosophy of angels

let the animals speak

if you’re good you’ll find

the magnets that teach their language,

wake like lions in each other’s Assyrian arms.

3.

A Movie: 

The Magi agree to apply their power to the light. Semiramus passes from intoxication to intoxication and he and his precious stuffs, his favorites and accomplices shine in the palace like divinities. Sardanapulus is illuminated and blazes with such splendor that it lights all the consternated city. The vault of heaven seems suddenly to set back, and enlarged opens a vast and sinister splendor such as the night of Babylon has never seen. Tongues of fire penetrate the cedar panelling; the frenzied songs replaced by cries of terror and groans of agony. The walls of the city collapse. The palace of Sardanopolis is melted, and in the morning his conquerer finds no trace of its riches, no trace of the king’s body and all his luxuries. 

***

Build a city from your last breath,

the way Zoroaster disappeared

with all his secrets and all his riches.

There’s nothing here without us.

Anyone knows how to use death,

to watch the film as it burns.

The past is still now but now the now burns through it.

A game of chess.

“Do you ever stop questioning?”

“No. I never stop.”

Showy stars sneak from their bright bodies

and meet quietly down by Brighton Beach

touching their immense hands.

Celestial lions whose cities we are.

The movie is over at any point. 

You can climb back up their paths, to the other side of the     screen.