Infernal Muses

by Philip Lamantia

GO! my calfheaded drone! O sheep faced Ana Stekel
turning into dove’s dung, Ana Black Ana Noir
over niagra of bureau lips, rococo of bad taste
your brassier window of New York drenched in marijuana rain
Bianca dead on the chessboard field
Bianca of torn down elevators Bianca projected from mexican days
            of the dead
in true baroque dream
at the house in shape of a monstrance
only there on rotten colonial streets autos da fe for you, Bianca
            jet song of blood /fires in yr toenails walls of yr great cunt
            emblazoned in bile!
I’m choking to see you Bianca
Bianca a vapor
at blackfender stockings burning witches hair
at obelisk of crayfish mornings mysterious Daughter Scorpiana
who nailed the corpse of wood on flesh
Scorpiana sculpted in white opium
head of Scorpiana circled by entrails
Scorpiana flown from wounds of women beaten to death by the Gestapo

Ana Black       Ana Noir       Ana Stekel       Bianca       Scorpiana
            Scorpiana       Bianca       Ana Noir       Ana Black       Ana Stekel

from Destroyed Works, Auerhahn Press, 1962