XX. The ironic peer

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

The herald of a hideous winter, careless of what he brings,
Comes with stout rage strapped hard to the locked thunder
Of heavy machinery lumbering under the inland sea.
His rude marshal counts random correlations and predictions
In a given splatter of yolk, wine, grain and gravel.

A seafaring force from the cavernous island of adamantine
Confounds him with news from all emerging nations
And a patriot's blood well-spent in a blinding landscape
Of milk-white sand overflown with the divinity of myth.

The ironic peer, drawing a line of natural light
And simple color
With a cart map and tripod compass, will guide the flagship
Through unwilling sleep, driven outward into godlike hardship.

XVII. The serpent's skull

In the sixth gyre of the Age of the Good Remainder:

A multitude of believers follow the dog-headed beggar
Over darkening thresholds and under sheer canopies
Of ceremonial pavilions standing fast in the
Churning current.
The rushing darkness is partially broken by reflections
Of a shower of gems through the spiked wheel.

After arguing with a bull-throated pagan disguised as
A hermit,
The Moskeel in a threadbare coat and a crown of nails,
With the devil on a leash, gives up his kingdom
For a broken cup, a basket of quail, and a branch
Of oranges.

Entangled hands form into an inverted bowl
That hides an alabaster box that holds
The serpent's skull carved from green-tinged ivory.

XIII. A blueprint from a madmen's reveries

In the clauted (cleated?) gyre of the Age of the Nascent Vaunthald:

With a blueprint from a madmen's reveries
And the hands of the forerunners of Thessarret,
A wanderer builds a new house of pale green jade.
The stone walls cast their shadow upon a stately cedar
In the old castle garden of Aureospa's grave.

War will come to the hollow streets of the outer verge:
The cloud-fringed vanguard fights in silence,
Bearing black dishonor along with misfortune,
Scorned by all those who battle beside them.

At the appointed hour between three citadels,
The ashen-haired servant with tattooed hands
Will claim the natural shelter of her attending blood.

XI. A summer's marriage-feast despoiled

In the dialected gyre of the Age of the Middle Gohlguanarchy:

From a summer's marriage-feast despoiled in reel
And rout,
The knight stands aloof; he wears upon his shield
The puppet crown
And slays with his sword fifteen long-suffering captives.
In thirty long years he will defeat twelve generals,
Burn ten churches, demolish ten temples, and build
Ten cities.

His denatured bride, widely praised and most
Closely guarded,
Arises with his silver-bedecked allies to supplant him.
The perfect cavalier cannot comprehend this opportunity
For ambush;
In the absence of the sun, fountains spring like a cloud
Of fire.

In a great arc she brings down the cursed hilt of
His saber,
Forged in witch's oils burnt green, blue and white,
Which fractures his unwary skull but does not kill him.

IX. A vampire tainted by burnt blood

In the sixth gyre of the Age of the Yequirthed Crisis:

On the crib of a child born with a caul
A starling finds the inscription of the Venirregantha
And tells of seventeen boundaries of existence.
A new voyage around the world will measure
The demeaned climates of several coasts and islands.

The torture of pilgrims of a children's crusade
Along the borders of the Field of Wrathful Dieties,
Will be avenged
By a bronze-footed creature, a vampire tainted
By burnt blood,
Victim of murder on the adjacent soil of Letlapa.

Foxes and jackals swim through black water beneath
The cleft gate
On the near side of Royal Asia's western fortification,
Descending into the belly of the largest kitchen of five.

V. An edictal bloodline is born

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

An edictal bloodline is born: the poet Maogul-atoda
In the likeness of a daughter of the moon.
She recounts the sorrow of her long search
For the lake named Throat of Omaplar
And the headwaters of three major rivers.

The riven serpent unites before going to war.
Those of the unwavering earth will hold for their
Outcast prince,
Singing to their sacred lamps, plumes tied to their hair.
Those of the white lily will fall for the guardian churches.

Twelve oxen caparisoned with flowers, amber
And gold foil,
Kneel before an ornate dais crowned by an arrow
Of raw iron
Etched with fire and spoilt with thick pink rust.

III. Within the vanished margin

In the hooded gyre of the Age of the Shielded Immaltant:

A small force of besieged soldiers,
Sent into the midst of a storm of clamor,
Intervenes too late on behalf of the depraved ones;
Marking the empty doors with charcoal and chalk
Within the vanished margin
Of the four-volume epidemic.

A radiant wheel formed by the league of the frostborn
Is offered in wrath against the king
Of unblemished reputation.
A celebrant raven in a false costume
Feeds his infants and usurps his wives

Upon the date of execution, the outland nations
Stand with the obscure youth rising
Against thirty-five years of wickedness.

I. When the noble tribe goes to war

In the second gyre of the Age of the Shielded Immaltant:

When the noble tribe goes to war in a holocaust
Of law,
A true choice can become round and bloody.
When they touch death, those choosing the right hand
Of life,
Decorated by any distinction, by any ornament,
Order silence and denunciation with false songs
Of mourning.

A small kingfisher with a long curved beak,
Her two hands under her chin, she will design
A woman dressed in black, open-headed with
Clean hands; her sister is closed with bittersweet.

Shadows opened up by the eyes and feet of a child:
White, gold and green lose one hundred killed in
This battle,
Four thousand wounded and taken by the black and red.