Opiate

Opiate, aconite,

beckoning lust and cadaver,

Lernaean fields

that my soul drinks,

as the elements press forward,

hear its flute-song, its cry:

"As you infuse your poison

"restore the self, past itself."

Cosmogonies-spirits

in the smoke of Hyoscine,

atomizations, syntheses

of change, Heraclitean:

These are the very same rivers

but not the rorauoı-

opiate, showers of rain

driving past river and self.

Amphorae stand and tables

before shades, dream-drugged,

thorn of sleep, fresh poppy calyx,

welling white to our lips:

here, too, is the threshold

from which comes a sound of flutes

and as the garlands unfold

wine and ashes subside.