NECRONOMICON


Sinister tome of
Sumerian Black Magic
gritty grimoire of
the mad Abdul Alhazred
thamaturgical scimitar of
Professor Henry Armitage
perdition of
Arkham Dunwich Innsmouth
damnation of
the family Whately
courtesy of
Howard Phillips Lovecraft

who mentioned it
infrequently in his
tender tales of
brain-sucking aliens
interrupting their
millennial slumber
to infest
human civilization
stink up small
New England towns
breed with
innocent human females
and much later
invent Disco

Lovecraft
who never believed
who knew fiction
when he saw it
or wrote it
never penned an
actual Necronomicon
dying too young
or disinterested
on a daily diet of
ice cream and coffee

Yet do listen
fellow pilgrims
to these screams from
the dungeons of doggerel

for in the first year
of Jimmy Carter's
reign as President
when an America
wasted by Watergate
Revolution and Vietnam
preferred to
make love not war
trade recipes for
hash brownies and
slip their hearts
away to Rock-n-Roll

it became known within
the candle lit apartments
and clandestine temples
among the low whispers
and strong drink of
New York's Occult community

that a certain maverick
Orthodox bishop had
somehow obtained
a certain manuscript

(as tattered as the reputations
of every twisted soul who had
fallen between its vile pages)

from a nameless
wandering monk
in a silent exchange
of Chthonic blasphemies
in a shadowed corridor
on a rainy evening
in the Bronx

Several destitute
students of the arcane
around the coffee table
behind the propped-open
secret doorway in back
of a certain renowned
occult shop cursed their
a truly metaphysical
cash flow problem

Lo and behold
the priest and his
Qabbalist associates

all for once
in solemn agreement
with the hermetic Will

discovered that
the script was Sumerian
the theme was Demonology
and the writing was
on the wall

"I'm telling you
guys we need to
make some money"

Duty called

	* * *

Stories soon swept the City

a translator murdered
by a disembodied entity
packing a .38 special
a publisher vanished
from the face of the Earth
without leaving any
forwarding address
rumors of Grand Magi
driven to babbling
insane sales pitches
furtive gatherings of
nubile young Thelemites
shivering through
the dying autumn winds
in naked anticipation of
the last wicked thrill
of 1977

You should have seen
the publication party

When the thirty dollar
hardbound edition
came out
I nodded to myself
even evil spirits
have to eat

When the fifty dollar
leather bound
signed and numbered
limited edition
came out
I reminded myself
even unemployed
sorcerers can recognize
a good thing

After all
at the time
fifty dollars bought
a hundred glasses of beer
three hundred joints
five pounds of damiana
a stack of pizzas
a bitchin' silver pentacle
enough candles for
hundreds of love spells
a night at any of
the finer orgy houses
the Library of
Classic Books
the discography
of Elvis Presley
tickets to the best
Broadway revivals
three months of
Rocky Horror

I took a pass
preferring good beer
to bad books

Life moved along

	* * *

Three years later
the Carter Presidency
crashes and burns along
with the helicopters of
Delta Force in
the Ayatollah's desert
sands

America searches
the gutted battlefield
of national conscience
for a leader to vanquish
the triple horsemen of
recession and inflation
and stoned malaise

while a three hundred
year old actor awakens
from a celebrity graveyard
in the California hills
to begin his long night's
march to Washington

and I am on my way to
Miss Livia's Sunday
Night Poetry Reading
and Pastry Potluck

and run across the two dollar
mass market paperback edition
in a little bookstore
on Sheridan Square

Oh no not here
not Greenwich Village

where modern alchemists
mix up entirely new
blood types in the veins
of young junkies risen from
their sidewalk sepulchers
to mumble incantations
by The Doors

where drunken teenage
virgin football players
blown in from the suburbs
try to pick fights with
weightlifters sporting
leather g-strings

where pop Satanists
spending Aunt Mamie's
little trust fund
sport 14 karat Baphomets
beneath greasy smiles
while trolling
the after-hours clubs
for living altars
preferably blonde

where Jesus Freaks
(those tie-dyed hippie
Christians who wrote that
folk song where people
drink Cokes up on a hillside)
have lately cut their hair
and put on polyester suits
that they may better
teach us to love the Bomb

where Witches breathe
the dust of ages in
quaint antique shops
searching for that
one key to unlock
the sweet and terrible
power of the Other Side
which they promised
their students last week
over that third Guinness
Extra Stout

The last thing
the Village needs
is black magic
courtesy of Avon Books

I pick up a copy

What the hell
you're twenty-one
you're invincible

and The Necronomicon
does seem to qualify
as modern verse
the words don't run to
the edge of the page
no one is quite sure
just what they mean
and Livia may find it
charming

Sweet Livia

grandmother to all poets
genteel hostess
retired thespian
withered legs prancing
beneath wrinkled miniskirts
published damn near everywhere

"Come my famous bard
and sip sweet tea
I'll drink of you if
you'll drink of me

and young poet unknown
the tea's just as sweet
take off your coat if
you can take the heat"

Get your fix
from the clap of
sweaty hands echoing
through two tiny rooms
bodies spilling
onto the floor
into the hall
find immortality
in seven minutes
enjoy it while
you're still alive
there's no money
in poetry anyway

	* * *

"I don't know"
mutters Sonny
a broken-nosed
county parole officer
who translates 
the ancient Greeks
into Daschell Hammett

I shrug "But it's just
third-rate post-romantic
free verse"

A couple of the
less spiritually minded
snicker into their notebooks
indeed many of the poets
whom I have met in Gotham
wear their atheism like
American Legion caps

But Sonny shakes his head
"Look here Johnny I'm not
saying I buy this stuff
but it just gives me
the willies"

Livia sips her tea
"Isn't that what poetry
is supposed to do?"

"Don't worry Sonny
you know me and I know
the authors and this crap
is so silly they didn't
even bother to include
banishing rituals"

"Well its your turn
so do what you want"

My voice lowering to
match the gruel of
horror's primal stewpot

I proceed to recite
the evocation of a certain
Sumerian dog-demon who
according to rumor
after the "translators"
had cast an
experimental circle
possessed a participant's
pet Doberman to take
a tasty chunk from his
master's arm

thus proving conclusively
that demons do snack

Every eye upon my lips
every pair of lungs
slow to the rhythms of
disbelief that any rite
could be this evil
that any poem
could be this bad

then from the rear of
the apartment comes
a thin cry

"I smell something burning!"

Pandemonium

Sonny dives towards the stove
sniffing for gas leaks in
an all electric kitchen
while Jersey Jane grabs
the phone and calls
the Jersey City Fire Department
while the rest of the pack
scatters or cowers or
shouts orders while Giancarlo
who is as fine an opportunist
as I have ever met
chases after us
scribbling notes
while Livia sips her tea

I race four floors down
the winding staircase
out the lion-faced doors
into the narrow street
and pivot around to
face the Flames of Hell
surging from the windows
the retributions of
one bad-assed demon
Cthulu I suppose

Not that I see anything

After I climb halfway up
Sonny calls down sheepishly

"Someone was burning
a batch of cookies
on the third floor"

We settle down to business
notebooks flip open
Giancarlo files papers
Sonny erases a lot
Jane eats a cookie
and sweet Livia
teacup in hand
smiles at me

"Well dear
would you care
to continue?"

I take a pass

But after that
no poet at Livia's ever
expressed the slightest fright
over anything that I read
not that I ever returned
with the musings of
mad Abdul or old Howard
or whomever
contented merely to
amuse the literate mob
with my own minor invocations
to Things Better Left Unsaid

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This poem is from On Pagan Roads Copyright © 2004 David Arv Bragi