The Trials of Meretrix Canto I

When your befuddled mind Forsakes upon the ragged edge Of swirling darkness; Where eternal night awaits To sate upon purest innocence Besides an open grave! When the gravity of your perils Be foully whispered within Dismayed And abject earshot; Where salvation for despairing souls Be so hopelessly betrayed! Then I wouldst draw ye, Meretrix, As I should draw a sharpened Blade, Fixing you like a point against some Long forgotten star; Nightly pushing my jealous eye Through the convex lens Hidden within the ground and Polished jar: Searching you out, my Meretrix, So many infinite distances away - So many, many light years afar! Thus will I circumnavigate Heavens Turbulent Oceans... When Sailing through the convoluted Worm that coincides Inside a Gravitons diminished tides That still grind upon this cluttered Bar; An indomitable ship made ready And waiting, Pressed hands mustered to do my Bidding... And I, Pensive, coldly deliberating... A man apart, Pouring over tattered parchments Revealing a secret and ancient chart. Let now the keel take the weight Of the dullened anchor So her draft may rise upon the Waves, Point her midships towards open Harbour - Bring down hard the lash Over the breaking backs of my most Submissive slaves! Cast of the hempen Moonbeams From the creaking capstans - For tis your Captain that stands Before all assembled and subjected Company:- Beat the drum roll, Sound the bugle - Helmsman...Swing abouts her rude Prow Into the endlessly, glowering spumes Of the great, spangled sea! So wonder ye, Meretrix, Upon these swelling orbs that Dutifully and daily undertake to climb; Igniting the dark shadows Thrown across alien landscapes Of such variable and strange design; Retreating Moons who leer reflectively When so forcefully compelled to Reluctantly shine. O Majestically rolling spheres Churning with the intensity Of a billion flaming desires! They that penetrate the abysmal Depths, They that thrust into the Secretive lushness of dense and Verdant shires. Cosmic furnaces, Forging thee Essential Elements, Fueled by self-perpetuating fusion Pyres; Spewing forth in Supernova Explosion - Amidst immense rage of Heavenly Fires! Each spinning on a singular point Spun by a hidden, and much Ingeniously confounding, Far more subtler art. The fantastic masses an irresistible Attraction, Upon all celestial bodies, Doth, therefore, by effect, hereby Impart.