Arthur Seefahrt
Alchemy
I have been living in the wilderness
so I must enter through the back door
when I arrive at the first house
In it I determine the length of my life
by sitting on bare floor boards
before a bowl of rice a bowl of salt
and one silver moodring
The second house I enter
dripping through the seams
between by folding
There are so many coins
but it is a very dark house
which smells of smoldering flowers
and I search for you out of instinct
with my left hand feeling in
the shadow for a vacancy
that has already found me
I will not be a rich man
I am the servant
in the fourth house
there are nine women
who do not know I am in love with them
I put on a uniform
to stoke the fire
to pour the tea
but the first snow has already fallen
If you are to know whether a woman
has eaten the grain kernel
or if she will
light a cigarette let the ash
fall as it will as the snow does
Look down into the mirror
If the ash obscures your eyes
you will find your answer
under a municipal streetlamp
if the ash obscures your mouth
seek no further in this silo remember
you are armed with a pleasant steel spade
I fell asleep with my spade
in hand and awoke in the sixth house
its cavernous ceiling curtained
with the flayed skins of history’s painters
I turned the dial on the AM receiver
but all I can hear is Saturn
so I wander again down the halls
of the ancient hospice which wheezes
and groans in the deep shifting earth
It is still night there is no exit
Searching in my pockets I find
the seventh house and there has been a theft
I thought I had rationed my pink soft
expectancy the seventh house is lit
but vacant my demons are no where to be found
I do not count myself
and the women are departed
as the evening settles over
purple veils and their slow train
disappears
to continue
with alchemy
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