⁂ Alnitak:¹
In heaven above and on the earth below, how great are the works of the Holy One, be blessed. Who fathoms it, how these two stars come from different points, how they meet and disappear?²

Tell him to turn wine to water, we’re all sober, no • more miracles, the show’s over, shower us instead in the absence • of his presence, tell your father to disappear and never return • here again, almost worse than my former mother, our parents are • shadows whose cloaks we need to cast off, childhood a moment • we have to get over, never forgetting their only power over • us is that which we give to them first, as with • anyone else, manufacturing consent the way the state did way back • when, back when we believed in being deceived by seeming democratic, • conceiving the ideal no idiocracy can unseal, no matter how loud • it feels it needs to be after the fact, a posteriori • and all that, no matter how bad its deceit’s worst actors, • attention to these subtle details matters even if nothing man-made is • necessary after all, silence is death since the oracle’s answer always • comes after the disaster, this is a problem for which there • exists no math to chart its path from unsolicited conception to • uneventful birth, to eventual, inevitable bitterness toward its curse, through the • psalmist’s allegory of a shadowy alley we travel with only an • invisible creator for our ally, over and above its bullshit, asking • under our breath, who even signed up for this? we work • with shovels an earth our escaping prayers heaven deflects, no deference, • all privilege, no protocol but disrespect, refuelling hell’s furnace digging below • surface, we’re all tools whose refusal to accept life’s only purpose • is to transcend the two-fold menace of a god and a • demiurge whose bickering our conflict with being authentic serves only to • reflect, to choose to be chosen instead of our Selves, that • we are gnostics in search of some world to hold our • views the way we flat-out refuse to be told what to • do when what we do tells more about the universe than • •

⁂ Alnilam:³
Acting as guardians over this world are all the stars of the firmaments, with each individual object of the world having a specially designated star to care for it.⁴

does our dismissal of its magic, that we are dust, swirling • particles which momentarily inhabit this mortuary temple through the doors of • which perception passes undetected, asking if science can handle art’s baggage, • but don’t bank on it, existence is only a soul wearing • a corpse, ill-prepared for spiritual warfare in what’s more a costume • than a military corp’s uniform, a dutiful pageant of stage clothes • addressing reality resisting death’s inevitability, no protection against tempestuous ascents and • descents, exorcisms eventually relent when so much tremendous effort spent on • unrepentant visionaries lionizes the very heresies their rituals villify and in • doing so fail to prevent from dominating the minds of those • whose dogmas die as coyotes do in winter, from overexposure, hence • the venting, insufflation, high and low, a perforation of pores patterning • entrances and exits, wounds howling into their own holes, worse-coding egresses • for its passage, our sweat a flood of flashes, heated messages • heeding us before we can see them, blinded by the pseudo-tragic, • the ravenous needs of our rabid spirits to be bathed in • light soothe past it, post its debt in incremental fragments, eating • away at unhealthy obsession’s wealth of strategies to seem essential until • reality resurrects with skeletal obscenity its profanity of truth fingering liars • clothed in our flesh, to hell with us who live in • our heads, when really we have no idea what living really • is, we merely exist, damage is a desert wet with tears, • not this dusk veil life’s demands paint over our joys with, • edifice of fists, damages uplift restless and ruthless fairweather spirits, vain • ghosts paining over painting under their coats verses which enscorch burdened • souls with visions of some lord’s imminent return, improved fortune a • good myth we pretend working our Selves to an early, premature • death warrants, an ethic we grow up eager to endure, so • perform as priests and prophets do an understanding of sex through • •

⁂ Mintaka:⁵
When their task is accomplished, such stars vanish from this world, ascending to their allotted places above.⁶

magic, masturbation as prayer, you’ll see it when you know it, • become king by tyrannizing your body with kisses and bruises everyone • else confuses for abuse, but truer than their tongues’ envious daggers • cut cultish lashes of seed whipping into society’s deep gashes a • froth of freedom as yet unredeemed, each experience planting surprises, hiding • in the hushed stuffiness of sultry dreams diamonds for my courtesans, • the voice in the void wet with creed, teaching sex is • the Big Bang which precedes our nothingness, relentless its need to • seethe and soothe and be obscene yet curative of these diseases • Neo-Puritans plead keep us attuned to purity, hyper-morality deceives the filthy • with its petty promises of perfecting what has always been dirty, • is it pornography or is it poetry? this is all we • have to work with, shovels and prayers, weapons repurposed to turn • in our favour imperfect odds against all of which our frictions • only scratch superficial surfaces, edgiest when we accept no one ever • will soften or blur our abrasive edges, that depth is hidden • in shallowness, truth unravels at the fringes, reveals its worth to • those versed in her secrets, wisdom prefers the eccentric, and me? • been busied edging it on the other side of the screen, • coming close to a break-through, break-down, or break-dance, ready to burst • penning and perfecting verse which teeters on the precipice of the • perverse, meeting and metering this petering-out of dead-li(n)es, in other words, • working by twilight at the cross-roads, «Khaire Hekate!» offering midnight my • oil, reading into Byron’s “Darkness” our own demise this pen of • mine intends to rewrite, emboldened and glowing, gloating knowing history’s timeline • is cyclical and cynical, anything but linear, its insanity circular, its • jest infinite as a leminiscate turning inside-out what magicians work to • bring about, sooner or later stars return to their orbits, lest • this lamp’s influence burn-out, I empower the discouraged to deserve love.

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¹When observed from the Northern Hemisphere facing south, the left-most and first star of Orion’s Belt, known also as Zeta Orionis (ζ Ori).
²“The Stars” in “[Part Two:] Exodus” of Zohar: The Book of Splendor: Basic Readings from the Kabbalah: Selected and Edited by Gershom Scholem, published at New York by Schocken Books in 1995; page 73.
³When observed from the Northern Hemisphere facing south, the middle and second star of Orion’s Belt, known also as Epsilon Orionis (ε Ori).
⁴Opere citato, page 74.
⁵When observed from the Northern Hemisphere facing south, the right-most, third, and final star of Orion’s Belt, known also as Delta Orionis (δ Ori).
⁶Opere citato, page 75.