[100 Challenge] Ocean_18

[100 Challenge] Ocean_18

Salammbô


Boil in the vats of stone the gold 
Pour it over them pour 
It over their gazes of avarice
Melt the eyes
Melt them through 
Slosh the skulls
And when they cool crack open the bowls of ore
To make the snakes cackle
Make them lean back 
Jaws hinged on the sky
Maiden in the snake-pile
Make them laugh
Clothed in smoke-coils
And sumptuous jealousies of velvet
Drop it away
Without shield of silk or leather
Without a king 
Without even a skeleton—
All softness of the world holds you up
Naked in the halls of Dis
Drinking the fumes 
Which smolder in the cobra’s jaws
The men ride in 
Waving their weapons of sharpened bronze
Echoes clattering the halls
Feeding time
Come in close 
Close in on her eyes
White as bone so white there is nothing anymore
Only white forever
Their spears go soft in their grips 
And the tremors rise up
Turn on them turn 
Sprout fangs and coiling 
Spring back hissing open on the jugulars 
And gouged through make them fall
Clasping to their necks their hands 
The throats spurt their final laugh of blood
Around her collapsed soldiers gurgle and die
No king
Not a king never a crown never
A shame garment
No curtain of velvet to hide the command
That forth from her pours its viscous gold 
Into the night of men’s wars and men’s desire
Carving for itself
A den of snakes

 

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