XXXVIII. The bandaged cardinal

In the third gyre of the Age of the Nascent Vaunthald:

Poisoned battalions ride as if on the ocean, awed by cold,
Suffering optical storms of transparent shadows
Magnified by the fierce temper of galling suns.
This sleep of opiates stretches its illusion on all sides,
No distant landmark breaks the monotony of its fragile glory.

The bandaged cardinal, born in the delicate ruin of a
Narrow six-story mansion, a bitter man with little regard
For marbled halls, abandons his beggarly church
And succors the remote expedition to the Byalkakeyl Zone.

A new vital energy is found in this itinerant branch
Of an ancient dissolute family. With rigor and purpose
A disquieted soul proves its genuine worth.

XXXVII. A flooded city falls diminished

In the ladder gyre of the Age of the Glass Council:

Where kings once toiled as goldsmiths and soldiers,
Where merchant princes financed poets and popes,
A flooded city falls diminished, its stout walls of honor
Shadowed by wet decadance, an ambitious mausoleum
Under trees with violet-eyed blooms and lush dark fruit.

Seven immodest artists challenged seven bullish judges
In laborous directions, two double-edged swords
At right angles to each structure of the foreordained body.
But they could not gain new force from the ceremonies.

Lost is the wealth of precision built by scholars
Who wrote their own fame, decided their own destiny.
Genius cannot collaborate with hierarchy.