The Snake Charmer

Pinch of a needle, roped:

the Old Devil---

a magician never shows his blade.

Flurried castanets, feet turned fools

turned abject, then cruel. How sheer

the line: folly and wit.

Quick!

Clever tails slip long-

listed trails, trickle

your mind,

and chatter,

and chatter… 

take sinister turns, the labyrinth

‘s worms, spin half-

golden teeth through half-

rotten winks, set

fire, set panic:

Dear Theseus, this thread was meant to free you!

(A whisper in a sneeze, impossible

to see): insanity, you blabber.

(Pinot? Oh! My swollen bladder.)

Gabriel, oh Gabriel, wearing that sombrero.

Absurd! Ridiculous! A dipsy in a cradle.

Mirth in mockery?

The cosmic hunt.

Gabriel, oh Gabriel, the apple on the table.

Isthmus: Barzakh. 

Truth faces False.

One shore: the Emperor, mighty with his sword.

The other: the Charmer, to whom no one is lord.

Yet even this, oh Gabriel,

to fall once

with her wily castanets

could turn a world

to none.

Dervish says serpents

spun loose around fists.

Dervish says: keep madness close.

Dervish whirls circles, mountains ‘round the pyre.

I couldn’t help but lose myself.