Beyond the cellar door: a sea, a swirling vortex of phonaesthetic delirium

Alas! As well, dank dirt and stone, anonymous

Not, you imagine, a trifle near Friday in Vienna

Nor rain in Augsburg

Nor sky, nor Skye, nor isle, Andromeda

Galaxy-illumined cosmos

Compare your azure,

Cerulean sister

surreal and mystic fields

Of fish an’ thistle

Or an intricate chalet

Emitting the call of a cuckoo

Measured footsteps (inches? yards?)

Until before you, a rickety wooden staircase

Lo, a lapse

Your ears conjure a calliope

Wispy thoughts, syrupy wonder

Make way for a hesitant climb on a floating, tingly cloud

To a fleeting landing, still more rising

Creaking while sneaking salamander steps

a secret ladder

Heavenward

At long last the entrance

Peering thru the threshold

A gloriously strange, cozy, autumnal,

Historic and woody

Obscure quarters

There the quiet tick-tock of an Ansonia clock

Obtusely prescient

A whiff of cinnamon, licorice

October in Inverness

Heather, sassafras, cardamom, chicory

Antique desk, lamp to match

Scent of amber, musk of moon

Books and books: shelved, entombed

Suddenly longing for

Coriander, malty ale or a scotch

Some Marin Marais

And nestling into the leather burgundy

Yet still anxious, solicitous concerning

These bizarre brass tacks

This clandestine space

Incongruous, deliberately arcane

And as though bewitched by some covert Enchantress

A figurative lightning strike

To your heart reveals

At your feet with dusty, mysterious air

A true ignis fatuus: a kist

Its emblazoned marking, susurrous forever in eye and ear:

Von Kriege

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