Litany of Antaeus

Strident--

Strife of earth and sea born in me, I Antiheracles

Antaeus- the firstborn spark of all striking.

A rage of ocean denuded- a vortex of man's drowning

Sea's granite-stark panoply, the coarse Cruelty of salt.

Antaeus! who is out of the wrack of Gaia- and her crags

Irassian tyrant, Caesura only in Msoura, of Berber's rags

They who shift the balances, who geared the fall of Troy- its

Blast and ruin, they planted me- as spider in the heart of man,

Knowing that though I was always death to him he

Who would call me - he who always needs an enemy

Out my death- monolithic sleep, pristine clarity in

Which I bided my time, I was called forth by the

Fool writer -as all myths are and I rose to see your City lit-

Dead monolith upon dead monolith, which you call a

Skyscraper: marked pure poetry of it- how they built

Their graves limitless- the missiles, the silos

They arrayed to spend themselves back into night,

And not foolish enough- as man's outmoded enemy--

Not Tantalus enough, to believe I could add one

Wit to the sum of it, I left untouched, the trap they

Had built, it's high summiting- pain cease without

Cease. Oh yes it was sweet to be outdone so. And

So I lay myself beneath my Kargan, the oppressive

Weight of it- where I can breathe tasting the

Bitter fruit of tragedy- the sweet inversions of it-

How even I- figure of a damned and scorched insolence

Could keep my feet to the ground, but man, stubbornly

Now rises- there a leaping, now a falling sound

Entering and courting with Death Profound.