FAIRYLAND Poem by Serge Delaive

Seven naked women
all wearing for finery
a torque around the neck
advancing towards me in a forest
they are wickedly beautiful
redheads or blondes
like the leafy borders avenues
in the wind which enfolds them
they sing lost couplets
and revive ancient vanquished gods
this one with a freckled face
stands before me and says
‘I recognize you. Your name is Anger'
She takes my sex in her hand
her green eyes moored to mine
whilst both bodies entwine
and murmurs softly depart
I remain still unable to choose
between my civilization and one forgotten
but someone cuts my wrist
laps the blood that runs
before spreading it with the tongue
into every orifice of my body
she who spoke to me gathers my seed
and smears it over my torso
before rejoining the lustful group
leaving me foolish beneath the leafage
surveyed by the half asleep eye of an owl
resembling the eye of war
laughter grows distant in the half-light
I can still discern a mocking voice
dawn husky and crystalline
flayed on the skin of the world
this long voracious serpent
the confused voice reaches me in fragments
carried on the wind which reunites
‘Anger, you will continue to wander the paths
until the day you find your true name'
But already all magic was lost
to the deepest depths of the darkest forests