by Brett Rutherford
On the possession of the San Francisco Police
by Demons, October 31, 1967
from the poem-cycle, "City Limits",
a rant composed at age 20
Look
into your streets, o city,
look
past the pearly teeth of your
laughing
Hallowed
night,
you
farms and suburbs with your
pumpkin ghouls,
look to
the neon metropole,
rip off
its lustered streets,
peer deep into the brimstone heart,
dark unto the twilight of Democracy.
Fly,
you borrowed myths, you dawn-age demons —
cast your broomsticks and your comet’s
tail
over the hazy bay and its bridge,
dance
your round on the lonely Chateau d’If,
(Alcatraz Island hidden in mists),
cast
your Carpathian woe on the fog-bound peaks,
bow out
the violin’s call to the sulfurous maw,
the sulfurous light in the park.
Where
Moloch awakens, the leaf of eucalyptus
dries and withers by the green pool,
the slope of runaways huddled on blankets.
The
face of the stars is blurred with the
enactment of Western demonology:
at play
in the night, cascading through the
Dippered Way,
the
phantoms of dread prodigal visions descend.
Ishtar,
Thoth, and Baal careening,
Jahweh
in his silence mocking the awaiting
synagogues;
A
horned Christ, Pan and Orpheus aroused
as nuns collapse in ecstasy.
They
come, the sky is heavy with them.
(as if for rain the leaves upturn
their soft and fertile undersides.)
They
have come for the Ship of State,
The stars of the flag will not contain
them.
Here is
the bloody Kali with twigs in her hair —
Listen,
she is a wind by the Stanyan Gate.
Tonight,
as the good white folk sleep oblivious,
as the men
of the Mission toss and turn.
as
Chinatown nods off, as Fillmore rage-dreams,
the
delicate succubae descend on one and all,
engendering demons from wrath and avarice.
König! König!
Astaroth! God’s blood, thou
Bairn o’
Satan, God’s blood down the hairy
Heavens,
bring on the streaming millionems
of the
demon’s brood, the leaky umbrella
of innocence,
the lust of unslakable virgins.
Satan
himself! San Francisco summons you!
In
nomine Snow White I conjure the evil which is
whoredom with any dwarf of the mind
In the
name of the tongue I conjure the evil
of the meaningless words that are Death,
that are dominion for the mindless
over
the lands and the slippery limbs of the
babes —
in the
name of the mind I conjure
the learned professor
(oh,
he has published widely)
he only says “Nothing means anything,”
and for this, Chaos bows to him.
König! König!
Soutek or Set! Aye, men,
There
be bristling demons in the park.
God’s blood, mun, God’s blood.
Kali embracing Truman Capote!
Ruby-carved minions! Fu Manchu!
Lilith riding Rod McKuen!
Make way for The Eater of the Dead!
Mary Baker Eddy! Werner von Braun!
City of
Night, Berg of Walpurgis, San Francisco!
Riding
the hallowed night,
borne
on the dark moon,
I conjure the slaughter god,
the
bane of ultimate hippie, the charnel cord
of America:
in the
name of the hand I conjure the evil
which is Fear
which is the King of Evil
Fear of the dark at the top of the world
Fear of the Other is
Fear of the Self
Fear of Touch is
Fear of Love
is
Fear of the Word
Fear a
bond which is one and together a chain
Fear an
umbilical mesa where insensitive
millions perish,
O that
the world would dissolve in the touch of
two hands,
that the multicolored children
would
entwine their arms in a round
dance,
that the sweet-limbed boys would
shun
the games of war
and love each other in the
summer night
and refuse to ever fight again,
that Man for an infinite moment
would
dwell in his own house
which is Joy
König! König!
King who is Fear, Sabaoth!
