Histomancy after Guercino : Padraig McCormack

H I S T O M A N C Y
[ f o r   R o b i n   B l a s e r ]

b y   P a d r a i g   M c C o r m a ck

It was all a mess, eros or heroes,
Birds in the face, la rota fortuna,
Shaky tabletops which couldn’t
Support even the cubist conception of

Topos or tropos, folios or polis,
Bandoliers or flutes, abstruse,
Where one enters a relation to
The pluralities of text and truth

Legos or logos, a child’s garden of
Grecian fire or Congolese clay,
Mud-spattered kingdoms of dribbled
Pagodas buried in ancient ash

A dream of cities that court
A civitas whose song is shapely,
Fed by a subterranean and
Empyrean azure beyond description

Perhaps the rumors of necropoli
Have been greatly exaggerated
And the hypnagogic surge of the sea
Wreaths a new heterodoxy

Sprung whole from the sphinx in the belly.

(2006)