HYPERION

The heroic verses

by
Martin Silenus
 ...Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
of all the unhealthy and o'er-darken'd ways
made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
some shape of beauty moves away the pall
from our dark spirits.

John Keats (1795 – 1821), “Endymion”

And now this is “an inheritance” -

Upright, rudimentary, unshiftably planked
In the long ago, yet willable forward

Again and again and again.

Seamus Heaney, Introduction to the translation of “Beowulf”

 Canto Zero

Sing, bitch ! And tell us the tale how the pilgrims

are washed ashore over shoals of time.
Yeah sing, slut ! You muse of mine, for once
behave and stay here: no haggling about
5 the price of inspiration. I'll pay with my life
if needs be, nothing less than naked fucking life.
About Fedmahn Kassad the fiercest of fighters
we wish to hear, and of Weintraub, his name
was Sol, a genteel son of science,
10 and of his daughter who seemed doomed to dwindle
away. True Voice Het Masteen – where did he go
once the Yggdrasil was torched, tree of distant journeys
and of human future ? Unfathomable distance
was covered by all of them : the Consul came alone
15 in a luxury ship, solitary Saxon
playing the grand piano and pondering loss.
Bold and unbreakable was Brawne Lamia,
bright star carrying memory of the starkest of poet-fates
steadfastly with her, a strong-willed woman.
20 And of course the satyr cursing rhapsode
and partaker of their fates a foul-mouthed poet he:
Martin fucking Silenus and his Muse. Their lore
like glittering salt from the sea adhering
to an ocean-farer's clothes is an omen spelt backwards:
25 it grew into lines that now lie low in this book.
And thus, bloody Muse be not mute to the readers,
but twang on your lyre the lurid and spell-bound
history of humanity to their high-minded rapture.

30 In the beginning was the word and the word was “Hey, you there!”
Before we descend into silence and nothing,
having seemingly come from the same through lust,
a brief time is ours and space for choices and fork-ways
engendering glory with joy and grief.
35 This we call life and thus we live,
the rest being philosophy or religion and morals:
let's cut the crap and clear the stage
for un unrehearsed play of peerless strife:
warriors crossing the wildernesses of space,
40 the Shrike Moloch inflicting shrieking pain;
a girl, then another, the girders of space-time
nearly undone meaning death for many.
Let us fling a few thousand lines and sing
45

50

and cry and smile or cringe and sob

55 at human history in the future: huge
is our scope.

When roving through scorched Tuscany one may,

suffocated by noon, find shelter sufficient
60 of a Romanic church; into the masonry
beguiling coolness guides and seduces
the visitor, shades as vivid and lush
as the burning outside going berserk with glare.
In the crepuscular innards of stone
65 the eyes, first un-reading then readily ache
with tears and amazement while tearing away
an old Latin veil from lapidary sense:
EXTRUCTA TEMPORE FAMÆ. If truly
greatness in time is granted through hunger
70 and thirst to live then thirst to live
must never be quenched, and never was,
for John Keats. Though his very name
was seemingly writ in water and misery
his verse cast the brightness of Very lights
75 hundreds of years over the trenches
where humanhood strives and struggles and dies,
yet lives again. A livery of glory
surrounds and clouds finally shrouds in our hearts
the words of marble we marvel and weep at,
80 even now in these blunt and bleak times of ours:
he has bestrewn the meadows for our fight
he has outflown the shadows of our bloody night1.

1
Yes, this line was stolen from Shelley.