Carlo Parcelli is currently Beat Poet Laureate of Maryland, USA. He is widely considered one of the greatest poets of his generation, or any generation.
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Scabiopilus’s
Vision
(an excerpt from ‘Canus Ictus In Exlium’ or
‘Dog Bite in Exile’, an epic poem about a fictional First/Last Century Roman
cynic philosopher and poet). Scabiopilus or Scabie gets high on hemp and datura
and has apocalyptic visions.
After riggin’ and hull be corked
Our dear Scabiopilus imbibe much hemp,
A the damp flashin’ what be about the camp.
And once so seized
Don’ he be crazed and whirl about
Flickin’ his tongue in and out like a mountain asp,
And
tears cascade a his cheeks
He call “See thee not his throne.
What a rainbow doth crown.”
And slappin’ his face wif his beefy palms
Abjure a sense and a blight ta alms.
And hurl hisself ta the ground
What many a Spartoi gather round
And ghastly laugh as Scabby churn his legs in
the mud
Wif a shoulder dug as a rudder be jammed
Into
the froffy ooze like a pinwheel on a rood.
Then jump up and kiss
The pates of our boney Spartoi
What his antics brake their employ.
“Look Ictus! Here be seven lamps and four beasts
Wif a mantel a eyes what their vigil never
cease
Doth thou not see, Ictus?
Have thee not but one eye?
The Antikytherae gears a the cosmos shine
before me;
What the stars churn.
Wheels within wheels, the heavens burn.
And what be these angels what block me way
What I be ta god’s visage this very day?”
“Scabby, these be not angels but our Spartoi
band.”
At what Ekhion and his lot drew their swords
Upon the portly guinea what be as a demon
possessed
But one possessed a little consequence.
“If this be the first heaven I be ta despair,
I abandon all hope and set me cakes down here.”
And as this be his desire what short a bane
or loon he be,
Scabie plop down in the muck and mire.
And from the Calcaneus scraps a this insula
What not Pliny or Photius conceive,
What Scabby fasten bone ta bone monsters
What remains be no kith or kin,
What be scattered in the filfy loam.
Our daft Scabby be certain not aware
The skull be a lion and paw be a bear
Wif wing and tail of a dragon
A chimera most intemperate fashioned there.
Or what be the ten leopard heads
And ten horns arrayed like a sunburst or a spiny pig.
And again mount upon the feet of a bear
As about the cess many paws be strewn about
And also again wif a dragon, for
We be confound a the parts’ whiches and wheres
What reckon chimeras and monsters and such be
there
And these be choice and rare, a revelation,
A what be cast aside a Polyphemus’ pot.
And Scabie babble on “What encumbered
The beasts be be numbered four.
But heaven be a seven
What the beasts times two be eight;
So eight be meat and d’un meat before light
be more
As be as darkness what firelight be for,
Wedded ta the belly lest the belly ache?”
Shout me guinea mate, “Behold a new empire.”
“What be this but us,” ta judgment rush, Pelorus.
“Yea, me bony mate. Us. Me likes the sound a
that.”
But I say, “Nay, no prophet he.
But by smoke, as prophecies go up in such,
False, too, me fop he be.
Behold? Behold what Scabie? What thou
Empire rise in a waft a burnin’ weed
What burn a barn as work doth breed contempt,
Or a pedant unleash a good story
As any madman be worf a pint ta tell his sample.
Me mate best be
The first disciple a Polycephalus,
A god what be a mere anomaly,
What be as rare as
his circumstance;
And from not entire above board.
For what as Hesiod or Crassus or Symmachus,
The latter, what ferry the very monsters
From beyond Juba, attest,
What be a two headed calf or a three headed dog
Much less the bloomin’ rest,
But ta pry a copper from the plebs,
What watch some mailed and manacled Gaul
Bleed the brute out upon the hot arena floor
And some greasy stall, a tuppance,
Barbie its kidney beyond the wall.”
And Scabie: “Ictus there be more than exotic
beasts
What spring out of me lixor’d breach.
There be a god in here what broach not thy
folly.”
Ictus: “My friend thou is burnished in shit
All signs declare thee lolly.”
Scabie: “Ictus, tell me people…”
Ictus: “Friend, thou hast no people.
And few what break sweat ta revile thee.”
At this Scabie bite down upon a length a hemp
Soaked wif what be datura mix a rue
And careen ta darker visions ere his stew .
What his bone beasts shake off their rank and rot
And Scabie naked, covered in dung
His two dingles and dangle clutched ere some
And the Spartoi laugh but ta abet his state.
What Scabie cry out:
“I saw an angel what come down from heaven,
What have the key a the bottomless pit
And great chain in his hand.
And he laid hold of a dragon,…”
And he laid hold of a dragon,…”
“What dragon, Scabie? Where be this dragon
But from thy tongue?
What piddle a words thy scatter
But ta floresce the dung.”
“See you not before us in animate bone
A new empire what supplant Rome.
Ta lay waste the city
What at lyre and wine blotto
What stir songs a home
Wif
grievous portends and monsters on our flanks
And stithied swords what chafe our shanks.
And quakes and plagues abreast
What we our enemies sorely test.
Do you not believe, you cynic cur?
Sure for Ictus I not mistook you.
You but the very beast what coils its chains.
I fell you, snake. And feast upon your
flesh.”
What he rushed upon me but fell
And merciful passed out where he quell;
What for a time we let him
In peaceful sleep tend upon his fancied
hell.
What a roar come of a fearsome snore
What empires rise behind one’s eyes
What he wager neither blood nor gore
As may it be a turnip attack a mule
What sense this day we coax a this guinea fool.
