Alchemy

I.

The lowly poet
in his heavenly ascent
doth contribute to man's
opus magnum

In examining his
crown of thorns
a budding wreath of laurel
he finds

...and thereafter:

The aurum philosophicum
               or
       aurum non vulgi.

Perhaps the alchemical gold
in the stream of
forgetfullness.

(the aureum flumen?)

II.

According to the alchemists
First we must meet the chthonic dragon:
spirit of nigredo
and it is thus that we suffer

Until this dragon
is overcome, the
shadow of melancholy
enchains us.

Entombed until the
Aurora of dawn
is announced by the
Peackock's tail.

To overcome this death:
Albedo, the ghostly
Whiteness, must draw blood.
Must take the redness of life.

III.

A new brand of listlessness
befalls the lowly poet:

Caressing his chains of freedom
Link by link

enclosing himself further within
an inexpressible conundrum:

metonymic escalation of
practical obligations

In a golden stream
of possibilities

Perhaps the aureum flumen
is the very opus of forgetting itself:

why remember, when what lays ahead
is the true elixir: the elixir of transformation?