My Works, Ye Mighty

Let rivals frown and sneer if, like a king,

I stamp my passions on all lifeless things;

my final words outlasting all these foes,

for whom my epitaph has bred despair;

this anthem seeded in each algal bloom,

sown long ago to yield a plinth of reefs;

or sealed within a patch of shale to save

from loss the fossils of each coelacanth;

or traced upon a mudflat, like the tracks

of ichthyoids that scuffled from the surf;

each phrase a symbol pressed into a fern

safekept within the coal beds of a marsh;

or dipped in amber, like each damselfly,

whose twitches ended in a dab of pitch;

or etched into the claystone from a creek,

where phytosaurs, inhaling lava, thrashed.

I reigned among the graves of pithecines,

whose femurs, broken, lay upon the veldt;

my god unmet, yet scrimshawed in a tusk

to poach the gravid magick from a witch;

each totem chafed into the gabbro bluffs

by bushmen born to hunt the thylacines;

each ochre stain, begored, evoking droves

of boars on frescoes in these humid caves;

or styled in russet glyphs upon the frieze

of cliffs along the miles of jungle growth;

or daubed with fat and ash upon the walls

of grottos where, torchlit, the horses leapt;

these words a dirge among the megaliths,

all lifted, like my crown, to ring the heath;

my masterwork encrypted in these nicks

and kerfs, incut on bricks from ziggurats.

I signed cartouches framed upon facades

of plasterwork, ensconced in mastabahs;

then carved a sign upon the tortoiseshell,

which pyromancers flung into the flames;

the slabs of mud, unbaked until the mobs

that sacked my palace set the tiles ablaze;

the scrolls of vellum, buried, like a hoard

of shekels, stockpiled near a lake of brine;

the condor and the jackal, both displayed

among the laneways raked into the plain;

my battlements that spanned a hinterland

to keep at bay the warlords of the steppe;

my papal hymns, like psalms of seraphim

who kissed the vaulted ceiling in a shrine;

the secret things, unspoken by the bride,

whose grin implied the ruses of a sphinx.

I ruled astride two trunkless legs of stone,

half sunk, obtrusive, in vast seas of sand;

my shattered visage, like a mask that four

colossi wore while staring from the bluff;

my relics left, untouched, inside the crypt

beneath the subfloors of a humble school;

or packed, like keepsakes, in my cylinder

interred below the fairgrounds of a park;

or crated, like ceramic shields, all stacked

and shelved inside the salt cave of a mine;

the organ pipes at mass, intoning drones

with treadles stuck for decades at a time;

each tune in sync with cupronickel gears

that clocked the kiloyears inside my vault;

the massive carving on the mountainside:

out for a walk, my darling — be back soon.

I roamed, alone, toward my cosmodrome

of monuments in the barrens of the west;

a zone where onyx blocks and iron spikes

defended toxic tombs from future ghouls;

the xenon atoms strewn, like dots of dew,

to form three clues upon a nickel plaque;

each cryptograph enciphered, like a gene

that masterminds implanted in a germ;

or etched, like microfiche, upon the sheet

of glass, which soared aboard my satellite;

or mapped inside the disco balls of brass,

which spun in orbit for ten million years;

the bootprints in the moon dust at the site,

where rocketeers unfurled my oriflamme;

my doombook stashed inside a supercar,

whose dummy pilot drove around a star.

I wrote refrains ingrained in metal moons

that oversaw, from space, a storm of rust;

the harmattan in realms where charlatans

mistook a mountain for my countenance;

the folklore in a world of books, all stored

aboard the landers lost among the dunes;

or minted, like a diamond centime, tossed

upon the ice, where rills of ethane pooled;

or etched into my disk of gold, dispatched

beyond the doldrums of the astral squall;

my sketches of two nudes upon the plates

held fast to probes outcast from paradise;

my thrill for eighty seconds from the flash

of static, heard but once, then never since;

a supergiant, dimmed as though eclipsed

by shadow-plays backlit against its blaze.

I raised my mighty screen around each sun

to bend these beams of daylight to my will;

the stars displayed, as though by demigods,

to draw the shapes of either swans or lyres;

each galaxy a wreath immersed in flames,

bequeathed to me, to rest upon my brow;

the trumpets of my fame, as loud as floods

of space-time from the brightest abattoirs;

all superclusters hauled, like cinderblocks,

to build a wall, which framed my universe;

the faint hello in shock waves from a glow

of pride, subsiding since the birth of time;

behold! — the poets who have yet to prove

their lastingness resent what life contrives,

insisting that their jeers are more sublime

than endless deserts, seized by me for art.

Alas, these peers who strive to know me fail,

unless they first surpass what I have dreamt.

εἰ δέ τις εἰδέναι βούλεται πηλίκος εἰμι καὶ

ποῦ κεῖμαι, νικάτω τι τῶν ἐμῶν ἔργων.