Lines Upon A Portrait Of Mr Edward Alexander Crowley Poem by Barry Van Asten

Lion, you fix your stare upon your prey
And sit, as some oyster-gorged demi-god;
With eyes like Death's nostrils, smoking hate,
And your fingers manicured like vampire stakes.
Dreamer of dischord and demons and darkness -
Confuser of hearts and sex: you sit
Like a bow-tied Osiris, adrift in the tomb,
With a brain full of chess nonsense...

And the menace of Choronzon's distant star
Penetrates beyond the confines of mind,
Bent with hunger, the soul assumes
A persistence of darkness that remains
As you stagger shaven-headed into the unknown -
Nosferatu bringing pestilence from afar...

And in old age - a portly Pan
Sipping Cognac at the Cafe Royal,
Manipulating forces around you
With simple gestures and words of power.

And his eyes through winding pipe smoke glare
As death flowers, amidst the stones,
Dark with pagan poetry... Flames
Toast his solemn heart... He comes
Like a huge bulk of Godhood, summoned
To the enchanted scent of flesh and song!

And in your defence, Monsieur Beast,
A sigh of surety and relief,
Handed down and placed in hearts -
A kiss from Kingdoms great and far:
A law unto our lovely star
And a dream of love for who we are!

Sat like Satan in your Trinity room -
Great Beast of your mother - Leamington man!
Lilith-scented, you huffed and you puffed
Through the galaxies of faith and waste;
Through the gardens of the damned
And every haunted place... But
What was said? What bombs of wit
Were delivered before the camera click?

With your sails full, you were unstoppable,
Crossing continents... a cocained collosus
Who had outgrown the human, and known
The habitation of the Gods, and what they are.
But the human lingered still, and sat
Heavy with its failures on your brow -
And now, what man of iron will shall come
To watch over the aeon, and sing
A lament for the World Ash, wonder sap?
A song of all time, to bring
A light from afar, to worship still -

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
Love is the law, love under will.