Ophitic Doctrine

Each night it arrives from the empty horizon

Weary as time it sleeps in my well

It colours the walls and sighs like an old song

Then dies in its slumber at the sound of the bell

Its fangs prey for blood on the flesh of the ocean

Then dies in my water and poisons my crop

It rushes inside me with each cup of wine

It grows from my heart and leaves before dawn

With an ebony half moon and the breath of an old well

With the dagger’s memory and the atrocity of kisses

With the compass of faith and the map of the stars

I greet the advent of the serpent’s ordeal

Its fangs prey for blood on the flesh of the ocean

Then dies in my water and poisons my crop

It colours the walls and sighs like an old song

Then dies in its slumber at the sound of the bell

With a cabeirian prayer and a sibylic riddle of doom

With the persistent words of echoing ruins

Out of my catacomb labyrinth of orgiastic cold

I greet the advent of the serpent’s ordeal