[I]

                            [the next  morning]
the ORACLE opens her glory hole!
               O :ummmmmmm…

hark ye her awkwardness?    you see, she, the SEE,
needs rekindle cinders — which is, to rescind
            — or rather, reverse, if I may revise
            last night’s visions t’were versed…

but how to recant what she can’t  recall?
or amend the unremembered — how
            might the blind revisee?

whatever sprung or erupted or flung
itself from her lips as if   
            to sue a fly  yesternight

is at-least-half-ashed  already in her memory, and any
remnants of embers’re  extinguished — every sentence
            of her impromptu, improper prophecy
dismembered and heaped  indistinguished — every word
            of import or portent she purged,
utterly  purifired, burned

            by day  to vague graylings
the mind-made-matter  her trembl’aching brain
now scours    and rums-for-ages thru    in vain
for speech-seeds  such of wheat, peas, barley

and millet in-mixd with the cinders — she sees
these gentle-bend commas of beans ,
            but no spelt in between — sees
how this barley points to an amaranth !
            in inarticulate exclaiming,
with twin lentils’ : aphonic explaining.
and spherical periods … o the poppies
            ye gods! all pauses!

gaps as gasps in ashes    of whatever she’d said.

only breath’s left in memory, only
structure of augury,    only punctures.

and she, having awakened in the adytum,
with br’aching day-shy eyes  now sees

how a little blue-yellow breeze
            veils in from the wind-door

scatt’ring a bit the black-gray, re-be-evening day,
      maybe even — !
                    [a catch in her haling
                    as she’s seized by the realized]
there is that scattereth and increaseth, oft caught
                    in butterfly nets of breeze: what’s wafted off
may proliferate, belitter  her oblitterations — lifted

                       *

pity PYTHIA, so-called PYTHONESS,
O, or SEE,  the mouthpiece
of her namesake’s slayer, maker
of nameplace — most sacred snakegrave…
o you know the one —
            of the lyre and sun?
           
            some seven rays of the latter having strung
the former’s bow.  the smiling lyre’s seven names
are a seventensed tautology
of fine  lines defined by touch —
made soft and fat in their midsts for singing,
just as longing    for the fitful play    of fifthed fists splayed.

the same for SEE, no?    her lyre-in-hiding   
            inner-strumming-mental,
his deft right hand  at her throat.

so thru her he may sort    new courses
for stars, everystring in between reconstellating
            the fate-threads written in crossings
of these: overs and unders of order
            — concordancing on a space-time loom.

to lay life’s alignments — that we may  meet,
that we might  twine-lie   and repeat
our rounds of light-made-sight  and sound — reprisals
           which tie up our ends in agains.

then    how wide this net — domed sky as high!

as the tiny, shiny mind of a lyrebird’s
            an orrery — o petty turns behind the eye
of lines, its spokes — lines the orrery’s spokes
            invoked in croaking voice:

swiv’ling lifelines, diff’rent lengths,  
            traced circs their ends evoke.
            of rings in rings,
o nest suggestion — nest of many nets!

            webnest of ravel refined to tines,
            to side-by-sides    like lyrelines
or parallel lives — all radial    in nature, really.
think of it — all of apollinear times
or glittering histories — oral, i suppose — spoke out
from sun’s still, burning center  of churning
            calendarwheel.

and she, P, as his prophetess, she
who dissembleth with her lips    is his sitting
spokesmaness over    nine of these lines, nine
for the months  of sun.
                        [the social maths say that]
all fathers know  nine daughters  
are worth of one    good brotherson, and
                        all-fathers know
that nine moons make one sunseason.

given this, in the heaventwelve piecewheel,
the fourth and final    triad-slice, that darkwhite
silent space in tines   tho asleeping — holds
the yearwheel’s tail-end in winter’s triangle-
            that awful maw — as the words
            of a talebearer are as wounds
                        [the very slain?]
returning serpent of sink-toothed sooths,
the back-biter, deep-throater — so deep as to seem
all-throat, so one must wonder  where his tongue goes…
tho i suppose    it circumlocutes.
o yes,  ouroboros — whose gag reflects  her own.

nausea, anxiety cycling — each
            in its turn eclipsing the other:
the desperate heart-quake that pounds at the head-door
while aching rains  its acid    back to upset gut
                        [and then back up]
such  is her convulsive expulsion- what’s eked from lips
— her reverse peristalsis  is an inverse precipitation.

so then    did she speak from
            where now she leaks from… was her heart
her words’ wellspring last night?
no… tho hearts are weak and easily
             per-versed by dark —
                        [as heart is sol of system]
they’re really all too body,    all too red —
                        [as bloodfist beating redly]
for such… subtle utterance    as this —

moonstruck she was, truly,    which is to say
drunk  on the watery star, overflowing
under its fluence,    which is to say
            … what did she say?
            what in this revel’s revealed?

her heavy brain wet  yet unreservoired,
post-diluvial, post-delusional, truly
— after having profused… whose truth?
            or whose tune    played her

            for a vessel dispossessed? 
as the wholly impious,  perfect body of fool-
ishness, which here is rumor, an effluence
of vacuity  ineffable, starwet and suggestive
      —   a black hole of decadence  is
all this    NOTHING IN EXCESS —
evaporated madness — a sane, if inundane
            uncertainty.

a condensation circ  her water marked
on the soothsaying stool may serve clue:
symbolthink — what does a ring sing of?
                        [what does it signify?]
this full eclipse… o screaming darkness,
            licking flames for lips?
black spot where thot    at threshold burnd.

or is it the snakering? the againthing,
mouth full of a whiter swallow
— this seeming nemesis
            of toothsigning PYTHONESS,
this — made endless    by holding its end
            it makes itself hole. 

this act is real, and thus requires a    why?
                        [y being the same
                        slack jawed snake, less self-reflexd]
its disempowering principle is pleasure,
and any symbolic meaning’s simple y incidental.
all phallus, but  initself intersexed —
obviously of female mind,  thinking
            itself in circles…
o them drippy dizzy spins revolting —
as a dog returneth to his vomit
            O's own emesis, once swallowed
returns,    also a fool returneth to her folly
— sick squishing twixt her toes.

[II]

so O ummms — as she invokes the phonal drones
of ecstasy, or just postpones    explaining.
                        [ums the um of contumplation  
                        ere the er of error]

             *

the omphalos — sharing stones with umm… phallos
— the world’s wooly gray navel,  the closed door
to an umbilical course of orifice,    the whole
            from which the idio sprang —
stone over the wellspring    of a hidden river
            whose own willing runs itself.

note the warp and weft of its coverlet,
its knotted nets like checkerwork,
or lyres  overlied at rights.
            our sound-swaddled outie shares whole name
with the swallowed, clothed stone chronos disgorged.

o  you know that same old song
            and dance about the son
so long many dances about the sun ago…

song of the swapped son,    the true one
afloat in mother-    woven basket
of paper reeds she’d wrought, the shell she’d overlaid.
flesh and stone both    obscured by her warpings
in which he wended  in a diff’rent river
              for a while, unminded.

                *

O, roll the stone over and off,    show hole
and call down your question    in the classical supplicant’s
            narcissic position, for it only echos
back in implacable winter, which won’t answer to no one.

let then wefts waft upward    of oracular vapors,
sauce that unstrings the vocals.

an unnaveled cord  lowered
finds its way to the source
of the coursing — the source is coursing
unseen — and the earthen serpent,
as deep river fissure  hisses as if it lived still,
ever-unstiller than any living-being
                        [living being but dreaming
                        till ever-still-sleeping]

an adder undulate underfoot, and a ululate
              unwebbing of tongue
immanent  in leg-melting steam up between —
o it’s just on the tip of hers — lips burning with it,
hovering over its coming —
             o! hark old glories!
this must be memory    upthrusting momentous!
             …
the watery boutade’s  oraculate
or spasmic souvenir reveals:  one, her soaked
white robe made sheer, with her nipples
pink pebbles thru, two,  written in stone
KNOW, THYSELF  with a comma-bean between
shines wet: not a truth in itself but its ism,
which is, in this case, fishier than ishness…

[III]

so what? somewhat humbled — lower yourself
as your own right hand at the rope rappels you
down the upwafting well shaft, down
to where truth dwells, resubmerged
in river, who hath babbling, half-drowned.

attempt to compel her  of course  to recall you
and wrestle with her for your question,
questing with blessing  of curse   
              to forget.
her strange  unlying guile widens and writhes
its redirections unbindable… her ellusion shimmers,
chimerical… try break the change    of her faces.

never stepping in the same river’s guise —
            twice evasive, she flows both ways, the way
the minor secrets may.
            but try anyways — vie all ways to vice her,
find the right chokehold to open her throat.

the river’s lethal currending revery —
an unmindful-    ness, which is its watery quality,
disabsolving all.  swollen with so many
stolen mementos — all tho true, aren’t all you.

            so again, you sort thru: dividing 
by divining — the art of finding    signs
            by signs — finding essence, the
nessness the divining makes
            divine — the dowsing rod
like a python cast down    to divers-faced waters
— the mantic finding the manic  river-in-her  tied
by cord of rope-tile,  many-threaded, multi-plied.

and the river woven, too —  with streaming strings
reweaving — withersoquivering ever  caressing 
nesses on nesses, singing    simply their names
               for the pleasure    of it, this friction
               of rivulets rubbing    those vibros o
the violyrebows know — ay  ee  ee  
               ee ee  eh  ee —toothless truths,
and inarticulate — yes delphic, but davidic
and orphic as well — as in water 
              face answereth  to face
              her true phase, a phrase,
a mask to be reveiled: i will divide them in what’s hidden
              and scatter them in what’s revealed. 

[IV]

             then    go to the ant,  SEE!
anti-myrmidon,    so to speak —
and seeds, go to threes… little poppies’ ellipses,
            red as their perfections    are
as fire-ants in these ashes — so sort yourselves!

and therefore remember yourselves,
ye ever-regenerate,  red hundred-armorèd
centurions  in your fire-brethren world.

with an inborn leg-memory preordinance
              of form and mation,  march-on
in to and out, too    the mouth
              of the mound-    oris, os, ostium
or vomitorium,    sinking by instinct
in their odd whorled order, as if a drain-floor were
the dark portent’s opening,  porte-noire.

             and do make root,  in fact
             take flow thru notions   
of one great tap truth,    its chief shaft unspeakable,
from which off shoots — articulations,
reticulate distributaries  netting the pettier
proofs, rumors, reasons    dissem-wended
            so many stories lower.

: this the fabmythric
            of their nation-state, an anti-net  unmade
of knotted air, of naughts    in earth   
            which serves for its interstices.
: this the virtue, too   
of their snare — whatever’s caught is hidden there
            riddled within strings intrinsic. 

hear a pulsing there,    all thru’s
            a red-beat  march-to
of some unseen, unseeing under-sun,
            a time-keep unminds mine,
this rhythm without   thot that draws,
propulses, flows both to    and aways   
             out from a cthoracic cavity,
her secret-keep, the coursing’s source.

and is there a teared veiled there
             before the hole of holes?
             deep penetralium, terra interior,
palpating black-belly sense-magic
             with no image, no eye
as every smuggled crumb of upper-sun’s snuffed
by smother,    supreme mother, most inferior
red re-member-er beats on, weaves her beads on
strings of he-secreted seed she keeps
             in her self-reticule.

and from there — is there not some psychic tear?
consciously unmothering, she
            abandons her handiworks.
unwarped and wended away    to be raised
by other,  unqueen earth mothers:
             half-sisters and aunts.

their hardly-bodies, soft and unswaddled
long to short pauses,    or comma called larva —
then to pupa, when what was egg  will self-shell,
once grown the stones to ossify —
             willing the power to sprout
one radicle leg first — then five further,
spurred by rhythm’s swim    to the dance,
            artless march thru the branchless
            roots of routine.

but if someday the system wills  
one tunnel up    and vacate cave,
what strange  funnel-web seductions
            would he then seek?
more masterly tapestries,  stilly dew-glit
imageries, making eye-sense of sense-memory

— what spiders looming  lie in,
            spin-strum  lullaby in?
what sunlit late-swathe swaddle
befits his birth-shroud reversion, his slipping
into something
            more comfortable, yet a little sleep?
an agrenon, a little slumber,  a little
            folding of the hands to sleep…

and if this is resisted — what’s left for him
but rematriculation? which shares roots with matrix,
by the way    man’s drawn to the mons,  
go the mound,  and homing, go back down.

but this time trailing behind him’s a line —
            a-cording thru the canal
his story, tho borrowed, his yarn thru the annals
            and down to the bowels, down
to the nethermost node, for all low-roads flow
            to her pleasure-dome,   
            queendominion, the heart of
all matter, gestating  cave of make-belief.  
each    an impression of the empress  
            remembering emptiness.

one comes to fuck the mother, running from sun…

does it all come down to who
            gets to wrestle with womb
well — in the whom?

[V]

            O: whommmmmmm?
slow drone, collapse
            then swell again
of solar plexus, her nexus
            of sunbeams netting her center :
O’s inner ummm over her own    in and outie.            

              *

           O: a-chem!   
           hark her again!
for, as opposed to her previous lunatic
           and dithyrambic vision,
PYTHIA keeps her re-vision pithy,
            speaks she in I AMs:
this being her only knowing, a rhythmic sun-thing.
certain of the structure of it,  certain interstices,
sound-boundaries,  aeolian edges
            of the breath-silhouette.

and of the letterd    prophecy-body — if not
in keeping with its spirit,  at least
with its sol unknowable — the very same
souller  of the seven-noted rainbow-
red-etcetera violyrebow — here after all
is her self-ful-spilling  promisey.
            she’s keeping it

draped over a sky-rafter 
of the sun and its beams,

the moon too, unseen — slung over these,
            hung over her,
                        [is this what had come over her?]

o but
ah well    ah well
all’s well in the all-well  when

not for another hundred-hundred years    or two
till what I said — what e’er I said    comes true.

so O of the many epithets,
inspired with the epic breath,
            just… postpones, transposes
her epi-phony… indefinitely —
sowing ellipses to test-what-she-meant.

her own soul like a stiff-necked river,
willful — pulling of the python-rod disregarded
— just one spoke of the wheel she’s overturned,
and sleepily    rolls on, all snakes on the sacred way
            but twigs  atwitch in her periphery,
            asps to scatter, and bringeth   the wheel over
them    and the wheel’s eyes as prey’s — on the sides,
            in present-center, this small still breath
in re-turning ever-ever-present yet evanescent as it rolls
down the road — o focal navel    o solar point.

*

            don’t you know    in time    you’ll cloak  with time
your stolen  after-glow, SEE, your whole    mouth
shining white dripping winter    as you dismount
the three-leggd stool, you’ll    reveil in re-twirls
            as moonth-she do,    irrevelatory?

              *

then what else from this pismired prophetess?
naughts, gossamer rumors strewn thru  
            grasses, twigs and sticky
gossiper’s webs we lie

            in — net-mesh of fire so fine
only water could pass thru,
            pass for truth    tho filtered
in this word we weave or be weaven
            no, woven
                        [reweave]

and truth, being true, is quality of faithfulness
— faith, full of ness,    is integrity of net, a holding to
its catch.

             *

even again. the evening-out hour,
the weaving wending down.

SEE restories    order in the cinders,
she sweeps the meshingfloor.    keeping
but three poppy seeds asleeping
           on top her finger’s tip.
all her arm Cs them O    into her swallow.

gather up your parables, P, nine marvels
lost in time,    nine wonders without musing   
            wander in the mind
off to nod, your drowsing rod    tugs down

to hidden river ignorance
            —        whose trailing tail ings — it curls up into
mouth of cave as if to —

and when she come to sleep,    all dream.

               *

[postscriptum]
this poem is  pro-verb: it lessens
its morals to morsels
of unsorted story.