Atlantis Express Poem by Ira Cohen

Let's take a silver train underground
to the back streets of Atlantis
thru the corrugated iron roots &
then to the peak itself, to the
saddle of the last ridge past strewn
boulders,
finally meandering thru cascading snow
wearing miner's hats on the perpendicular
dark night &
going up to the edge of the Southern Cross
where we reach at last the pure white
glistening glaciers &
begin to chant over bones in rags
of Scorpio
Armless in the sticky substance how could
they ever have had a chance?
Permission will not be required
only poems of blood offered to
the memory of TREE
It is not ice which is eternal
but the fury of the absolute
separating the void from the spirit
of man,
uplifting like life when it is used
against itself,
that is, Radical Love - & again, we
are reduced to living beings
Caught by the instant
we are taken away
We live in the imprint of the flame
& we are helmeted within the internal
blackness
where the ray begins its passage
across the indignant sky
Vain clouds uncaring in a tangle of
crossbeams
culminate in the hermaphroditic mirror
of the epileptic dancer
asleep
And during sleep
the light is joined
to the light
It is all a matter of getting up
and then to abandon the pain
It is there that the journey beings
in the self generated flame of
Spontaneous Combustion
(Swayambhunath)
The main line running counter
to the triangle comprising the
MAELSTROM, the DOLDROMS & the
SARGASSO SEA where sleeping Atlanteans
dream forever,
this line, this battlefield of the ages,
crosses the divide of my most wandering
backdoor heart.
We will all have to go
if we want to reappear
in the rhythm of the ritual
It's the wheel of fools spinning
over my bed
If I put my left foot first
they will find a way to call me
by that name
tracking tremors
like glyphs
on drunken walls
in the negative palace
just before taking eave
of my senses
the white powder dissolves
in the sunlight
& making noise like a peacock
he hops on one foot up the mountain.