A tribute poem to Clark Ashton Smith, offered by Sandor Szabo.

--

Lilitu

In vigilambulism
The nights were lost it seems
Held in the searing clutches
Of absinthe fevre-dreams

Temptress immedicable
Coaxed mad oaths from my lips
Ensconced in viscid claspings
'Tween blissful, lissom hips

Mating my demonlover
As moons hurtled their tracks
Damning my mortal body
With Asmodean pacts

I drank its burning kisses
Reveled with raptured wails
Heedless of gashes carven
By its uncinate nails

The days grow insubstantial
The midnight hours are lost
But I dare not stop to count
The soul-blaspheming cost

metsat00 Wrote:

> A tribute poem to Clark Ashton Smith, offered by
> Sandor Szabo.
>
> --
>
> Lilitu
>
> In vigilambulism
> The nights were lost it seems
> Held in the searing clutches
> Of absinthe fevre-dreams
>
> Temptress immedicable
> Coaxed mad oaths from my lips
> Ensconced in viscid claspings
> 'Tween blissful, lissom hips
>
> Mating my demonlover
> As moons hurtled their tracks
> Damning my mortal body
> With Asmodean pacts
>
> I drank its burning kisses
> Reveled with raptured wails
> Heedless of gashes carven
> By its uncinate nails
>
> The days grow insubstantial
> The midnight hours are lost
> But I dare not stop to count
> The soul-blaspheming cost.

I liked this: besotted logophilia in the finest decadent tradition. But if you are Hungarian, have you thought about translating any of CAS's work for the site?

Something else I've enjoyed recently (but I doubt I'd've guessed the author):

Memories (1930)

"The eradication of memories of the Great War." -SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT ORGAN

The Socialist Government speaks:

THOUGH all the Dead were all forgot
And razed were every tomb,
The Worm-the Worm that dieth not
Compels Us to our doom.
Though all which once was England stands
Subservient to Our will,
The Dead of whom we washed Our hands,
They have observance still.

We laid no finger to Their load.
We multiplied Their woes.
We used Their dearly-opened road
To traffic with Their foes:
And yet to Them men turn their eyes,
To Them are vows renewed
Of Faith, Obedience, Sacrifice,
Honour and Fortitude!

Which things must perish. But Our hour
Comes not by staves or swords
So much as, subtly, through the power
Of small corroding words.
No need to make the plot more plain
By any open thrust;
But-see Their memory is slain
Long ere Their bones are dust!

Wisely, but yearly, filch some wreath-
Lay some proud rite aside-
And daily tarnish with Our breath
The ends for which They died.
Distract, deride, decry, confuse-
(Or-if it serves Us-pray!)
So presently We break the use
And meaning of Their day!

Rudyard Kipling

---

“The true independent is he who dwells detached and remote from the little herds as well as from the big herd. Affiliating with no group or cabal of mice or monkeys, he is of course universally suspect.” — The Black Book of Gore Vidal.

Aloha Treycelement,
Actually, I'm American of Hungarian descent and don't speak a word of the Magyar tongue. But I'll try to keep contributing to the web site in the only language in which I'm semi-fluent. Mahalo,

Sandor

Thank you Sandor. I enjoyed it.

I have mentioned on this forum before that I also really enjoy, and am impressed by, your stories. For anyone not familiar with them you can find them here -

Slave Wind - [www.eldritchdark.com]

Along Came a Spider - [www.eldritchdark.com]

I like them both but I especially like Slave Wind.

I wish you would write more. :-)

Delightful! I do like Slave Wind--especially the last sentence! Makes me want to have a go. Long prose pieces are often tiresome to write--it would be refreshing to write something short. I just may.... Dammit, I will! And I've got just the idea....

Thanks Tantalus,
Your kind words are appreciated. Living in the near-paradise of Hawai'i is emotionally blissful; it's not often possible to delve into the dark wellsprings of pain and self-destructiveness that once fueled my minor attempts at CAS-styled writings. (Kind of like Sting's music started to suck after he stopped using cocaine ... though good for his health and serenity). But I'll give it a shot.

Sandor Szabo

P.S. Best of luck to you K_A_Opperman. Looking forward to reading your short story or poem.

Sandor Szabo

Kyle will do well with this project - small note for those who seek the deeper precision - using the Paradise for Hawaii is alright these days since the common usage is so widely dispersed now that no one would be confused by it - however, this old Persian word actually means "an enclosed garden" (the "para-" is the same as in parallel) -
The Taj Mahal and numerous other monuments and palaces in old Persia have enclosed gardens with a central fountain feeding 4 streams that flow in the cardinal directions - emulating (badly) the description of Eden and the four streams which originate there - side note, among my fellow scholars there is substantial agreement that the recent translation of the "Journal of the journey of the Emissary of King Enmerkar to Urartu" from Babylonian provides ample proof that Eden was almost certainly at the location of the modern Turkish city of Tabriz - A layman may find access to this information in David Rohl's "Genesis: the origin of Civilization" -

With deepest respect for a Master of poetry whose quatrains have graced and enriched my life, hoping that the eternal sleep is everything he conjectured and more -- Sandor Szabo.


Emperor of the Eldritch Dark

Sleep and dream most deeply o Thaumaturgist rife
Held spellbound in a sarcophagus verdigris-green
Lovingly entombed in an Incantation sublimer e'en
Than the weird phantasmagoria you evoked in life

Wherein your sovereign Brain soared
Higher than empyrean gyrfalcons streaking
Sinking deeper than corpse-flowers reeking
Whose molten roots to abyssal Hells bored

Giving tongue to blasphemous Prayers you
Awoke hyperborean flames within my breast
Illumed avenues of lust hitherto unguessed
Poisoned, profane, perverse yet -- True

Naked, alone upon elysian heights your Verse
Manumitted into daylight arcanities unknown
Ten thousand Worshippers labored to own
A mere glimmer of your dark genius/curse

Sleep and dream most richly o Apostate of heaven
Author of hideous allurements, resplendent malignities
A flickering sun will sink 'neath bloody eastern seas
Ere this earth births a Soul so unearthly again

Sandor,

I quite like your poems--and I happen to be the Poetry Editor of newly created Dark River Press. Unlike most zines on the net, we like and encourage formalism. We are one of very few zines--maybe the only one--which would accept anything written by CAS, if he were still alive, in a heartbeat--though I would be horribly dismayed at his completely occulting my own verse.... :(

Anyway, feel free to check out our submission guidelines here: [www.darkriverpress.com] (scroll down to the very bottom for special poetry guidelines!)

And you may see something you like on our dark Poetry Pages (a sampling of my own poems can be seen there, and D. L. Myers is not to be missed): [www.darkriverpress.com]

We intend on becoming the hotspot for 'dark poetry' on the net. Anyone reading this, formalist or free verse (as long as it's dark and well-wrought), is welcome to submit.

K. A. Opperman

With apologies for lifting the rhyming scheme from a distinguished Oxford don, and borrowing H. P. Lovecraft's nickname for Clark Ashton Smith I offer the following tribute poem. Sandor Szabo


Prophecy

The master took his sharpened quill
He wrote until the night was still
The words were dark, occult and stark
Yet pleased the ear as verses will

The pale man's eyes were gaunt and sere
His pen strokes rushed as though by fear
Yet eldritch words, aflight like birds
Appeared in quatrains dour and clear

Aflame with fever ill-contained
To set down visions unconstrained
The words set loose, as from a noose
No more would omens be restrained

Princes wept as their empires fell
Karcists perished and sank to Hell
And demons dire, their eyes afire
Slaked monstrous thirsts and feasted well

Vampires stalked amid Zothique's halls
Death and disease bestrode the walls
The townsmen cried, and fell and died
And o'er the wrack a banshee calls

No longer king on gilded throne
Or slaves and minions bowing prone
The ravens feast, on great and least
Who lie without cairn, grave or stone

Silence reigns where emperors strode
Owls roost in the wizard's abode
Floors gather dust, as iron rust
For none the dead do discommode

The guttering sun fails at last
And mankind's aeons now are past
Love and fear alike disappear
The final dark o'er all is cast

Adown the master sets his quill
His tale is told for good or ill
A warning clear, if we will hear
Now all is quiet, calm and still

Klarkashton well now has spoken
Hark to what his rhymes betoken
Or know no peace, no soul release
'Til the eldritch seer is woken

A wonderful poem. You need not apologize for borrowing 'others'' rhyme schemes--Klarkash Ton himself did it--every poet does it. And what is the crime in calling someone by their true name? ;) Just curious, have you ever considered using punctuation?

Do see my note above, below your previous poem. If you want to truly glorify our beloved Klarkash Ton, these works should see a larger audience who is not yet familiar with him--and I can help with that....

K. A. Opperman

Aloha K. A. Opperman,
Although all authors who take up pen are influenced by others, when the similarity becomes inescapable it's respectful to acknowledge, as Sir Isaac Newton put it, that we stand on the shoulders of giants. Just my way of paying a debt of gratitude to J. R. R. Tolkien (who was himself a generous borrower of literary ideas).

Your offer of expanding readership of my literary attempts is generous and appreciated but not a direction I wish to pursue. The dark and obscure avenues Clark Ashton Smith chose to tread are by their very nature paths of solitude and circumspection, wary of entanglements and eschewing exposure to the tumult of throngs. The select audience of the Eldritch Dark is exactly as it should be. The few souls who choose to walk these shadowy trails far off the beaten track are not here by accident. It seems there is benefit to having a modestly sized group of likewise-minded scholars who choose to seek out and share a particular oeuvre of literary experience. This is my personal belief; other Eldritch Dark readers and contributors may feel differently and I respect their opinions.

Perhaps an analogy will serve: in Hawai'i there are hundreds of hiking trails. Some are famous and crowded, others are obscure and do not even appear in published hiking guides. I enjoy them all. On the mainstream hikes I'll invite friends and acquaintances. But a select few trails are remote, difficult and particularly dangerous; you can hike for hours through nearly impenetrable forest and scale dizzying cliffs without meeting another soul ... infrequently you may chance to meet another solitary wanderer. While they're open to any who choose to hike them, to me these trails are sacrosanct and I don't speak about them or invite even my closest friends. If they are meant to find themselves on these trails, they will. And then I will welcome them happily.

Wishing you the very best success with your zine and your writing of poems and stories. Mahalo,

Sandor Szabo

Well, Sandor, should you change your mind, you know where to find us. I understand your reasoning perfectly, and am not surprised. I, however, prefer to be in the spotlight!--though too big a spotlight, I confess, might frighten me for various reasons.... ;)

Though you don't wish to participate, the site is worth visiting for its poetic content--though the quality and style varies, of course. There is something of the spirit of the ED there, as I am obsessed with CAS, frequent this forum, and choose all the poetry that is shown on the site and in the ebook. Naturally, my love of CAS and formalist poetry influences my selection process a bit.... ;) But of course, I have no idea what sort of people are reading the content; and it may be that a majority of visitors do not share my--our--tastes....

K. A. Opperman

Sir, I urge you to accept Kyle's invitation - you write well, and will only, like good wine, improve with age -

the Muse dispenses her gifts with care, and you would be unwise to anger her - publishing in this genre will not create hordes beating down your door - but will enrich the like-minded among us, as, I trust, you are enriched by the others who share themselves here - letting others read your poetry is, I admit, like opening a vein - it can feel suicidal but in fact becomes a transfusion for the ever-thirsty dwellers in the gulf - myself among them - If I may speak for Clark in this instance - when the poet becomes discouraged and feels that his vision must be empty of value since it seems that no one else hears or sees or cares, then he may stop listening, and even lose the desire to visit the Spring - Sir: we need you - and - I think you need to know that we need you to sing - do it - humbly yours, Dr. Farmer - fan