"Even damnation is poisoned with rainbows"

           - graffito on bus shelter, 12th & Cambie southbound, Vancouver, early 1980.

  I (Prologue)

Is this a new sun already?     Are the coils of doom already strangling . . . ?

What boding can the silver glare of the wet northern summer
reveal in time     before the sunset majestic . . . . ?
Dampness lurks     in the long grass     the golden diamonds
drop into another form heedlessly
and the crops of the long grass     are so far     only long blades

Fresh titans, is it, beneath this wave of oracle?
The old signs read like stones freshly carven
guideposts and warnings both to and from
                                   a world freshly hewn
The axe and the hammer level     the forests and hills
and the thundering anvil     clangs alarums
into the face of the west wind

Will green children     dance among the shattered stones     and the tained dew?
The fogs of change     will lay long on this sad world
and the things of the gap     will prowl voraciously     in the frail tents
that men have made their homes

Three winters past, long and fierce, and the mountains of ice flame anew;
the lords of the wolves bay at unseen moons
and the whales sing their elegies for unborn suns
that lie in cold cruelty in the vaults of war

Omens stack like the lies of the gods     and the jests of giants
while the frantic hearts of the middle worlds
ready the stage     and polish the heavy keys.

Already the drum has sounded, the crack of the chain snapping,
and the call of the greatest of horns is waited
to warn of the siege of heaven     and the shattering of rainbows

Frosty hooves on ancient bridge     driven by the hosts of flame
The whips of the gods          shatter the cold rocks
and the sea will blacken, poisoned,     and the sun will be forgotten
beneath the lowering clouds.          A squirrel will die.

A mighty tree has begun to fall     and great mists begin to fill the void again:
What new giant will now be spawned
to be hacked apart     by his progeny     to build a newer world?

Why bathe this fragile place     through gaunt mists
with the pewter-light of the end of time?
The rocks heave,     and so an age.

  II

What mighty will hath smote thy form
and what great force shudders within thy fiery bowels?
Scion of the great dragon, born in boding beneath the passioned earth,
a great worm five times round, smoky lord of northern skies,
what visages in the heavens will you bring upon us
at the closing of a world?
Poisoned sky and blackened sea, shattered land and stinking waste -
Foreboding, Anger, Hate, and Haste,
Powers dire, destruction fair,
what secrets lie within your lairs
to sweep across this ravaged world?
The final match, the godly doom....
The heavens smashed and new worlds whirled
No banners masked, no pennants furled.

The runes are cast and carrven on the rock of time
Change eternal lashes its waves to erase these, too,
for yet another set to be norned in stone.
The mountains revolt and signal loud
A raven flies, an ancient woman fears.

Mountain, mountain burning brightt
within the ashes of the night -
what immortal deaths and nights
will smash and wreak with fury high!

  III

Rune, rune, Horde of Fate
Will any hand this tide abate?

  IV

Self-imprisoned in your private hells
the jaded folds of amber pitch
mark your spirits well, within,
and lock the hidden caves of your hearts.
Cannot you breathe the clean air
and dance with urge the dreams of your faults?

Cold titanic blood begins to boil
in anticipation of a time -
peace,
     and the buried gods.

Beneath the hot black loins of darkening night
A cold storm blows on a lost mountain hight

  V

Basalt sinews, hardened chaos, strain
anxious for passage, great silent,
from the blasted fields of forsaken earth.

Hammer's bolt and giant's belt
the worldmill's strike; what else will melt
than the mountains cold and deserts hot
and bottomless voids of nothing and naught?

The walls are built high     and well before the wind
but the rocks will have revenge     before an age is out

Hammer's bolt and giant's belt
the worldmill's strike; what else will melt
than the basalt sinews, hardened chaos
the anxious, pregnant, void     and the great silence

What corded codes bind your girth
to leash restraing from your obsessive wills?
The battlegrounds within already are thronged
and scars run deep within your necks.
Cannot the hoarded howl be heard
and mass exalted beyond its way,     and force forged
                         to ride the windy waves of change?

Hammer's bolt and giant's belt
the worldmill's strike; what else will melt?

Hearts of glass     strongholds fast
Crystal storms     and marbled worms
encircled walls against     anguished, grown-cold, lust-lost-love
and uncandled hate a-heat,     canny, desperate, dust-bossed mud.

Hammer's bolt and giant's belt
the worldmill's strike; what else will melt.

Of what, from what, deep-cherished guilt
is your final mansion built?

At the deep dark mountains' roots
a knot is gnawed on question moot
the fates of the wise and the doom
                         of gods
A well runs dry and grows with moss

  VI

Hammer, hammer forging storm
an arcane urge drives thy angry soliliquy
along the eldritch road to worldbane wood
where bays a hound,     foreboding's brood,
and stalks a shadow     to lie in ambush
above the echo of the abyss
                    and the fogged mirrors of time

The book of wicked, thunderings bold,
cracks open with a flash     upon a montane stronghold
Great booming rolls beneath the rocks
The blackmailed fist, aged, greying, knocks
upon the door     drawn with runes
that sealed away a vision     of spitten, pented coils
and the chains of change are broken to end an old crone's toils.

Hammer, hammer forging storm
That stuff thou smite     to build the form
anew, and not, the fledgling worlds
which spark and spray     in twisting whirl.

The eye of destruction, fire's rain faults
the hastening storm, which draws in call
with stentor voice to the standing stone
the host of fate     makes urgent moan

Along the eldritch road to worldbane wood
an arcane urge drives thy angry soliliquy
     to the
Hammer hammer forging storm
Hammer hammer blackened night
Hammer hammer forging form
Hammer hammer thunder's might

  VII

  VIII

Charioted anvils cruise     to take the hammer blow
and forge a world     from fury's fire, warning horns
to sound in jagged tongue     and scar and tease the jagged places
high above the earth     and cragged above the ragged faces
Haggard land laid waste     shrug not shouldered discontent;
The maiden cavalry of hell     will ride youuyet, and rent
no heroes from the field;     the ghouls are fat this day
and by the poison chains of malice     are the godly draughts betrayed.

Grim grimness glooms     and the sun weeps with blood
what grey will glow the moon     what flesh is this that flows in flood?

Frost chaos, whitened knuckles, grasp thy staff and stagger not!
Stone frost, stand fast to cross the frozen seas
to the fiery halls of stone, from the stony halls of fire
and the tumbled walls, giant-built, which lie in heap and forgotten ice.
New mountains loom, new meadows bloom
on the far, far side     of the smiting hammerdoom.

Hell bridge hold up    a manic cavalry     vaults the gorge
where had a prism of the sun been held     and unblown horn waited for its time
Dragon horde, what titan forge     has lain along thy back
to rouse thee, hot and fell,     to hunt along the middle track?

In black of day     in white of night
the hellhorse bucks     to challenge thunder's hammered might.
Soon gapes the day     on damned site
the bottled vengeance bucks     to urge and slay in elemental fight
   to hack the gods     to black of day     and white of night

Stone blood runs cold in mountain veins
but lashes forth in hot red rains
What cool fire will be unleashed upon the world
as new dragons     lurch     toward the mountains to be born?
Hammer's might, smoky mist
fire and shroud     and icy fist

  IX

Hoist axes drawn sharp with stars
to rift the misted spaces of the time
appointed victory, doomed in stone
from budding boulders, full mountains grown
Sword hew the cloud and scream on high
above the fray     and havoc fey
and stab the earth with gouging swoop
and peg the wheel of destruction
at the graven, standing mountain-core.
Rail the bridge of heaven     with your steely rattle
and jab awake the sleeping giants of the sea.
No night shall pass without a day
nor any day before a night
for in wake of booming crack of doom
Heavens fear the giants delight
and the olden roar that is the battlecry of hell
runes the fate of godly wills,     in giant knell.

Rivers of fire     flames of ice
in frozen black procession     ride the armies of the night
Long winters grsp     the giants curse
and march upon this middle world

Black hafts of ash     and well-stone mace
What shock is marked     on white frost face
to anger at the passing time, the steelsword gash,
the frothing, sparkling gulch, and the hellborne lightning's ash?

Rivers of fire     flames of ice
in frozen black procession     ride the armies of the night
from deep space void and timeless form
ride the forces fell     fraternal to the worm.

Rivers of fire     flames of ice
The carrion hawk which follows the armies of the night
is the throned eagle fall'n, the bastard of the light
Rivers of fire     flames of ice
A brazen general blackened leads the armies of the night
from the cold northern waste, to claim their ancient right
Rivers of fire     flames of ice
Half-fair, half-dead rides the consort of the dark
on phantom mare she rides ahead     in train a vision stark:
Rivers of fire     flames of ice
Freezing day          scorching night.

Rivers of fire     flames of ice
in frozen black procession     ride the armies of the night
Long winters grasp     the giants curse
and march upon     this middle world.

Rivers of fire     flames of ice
what fate-flung fool will youuface
to edge him to the precipice
to end his danced-out ill-starred race
with warped time and and bracing space
to grip him in an anvil's vise
'twixt rivers of fire     and flames of ice?

  X

  XI

The rocks are chanting, the mountains dance
the wind whirls black and bright
on cool lost summer night
The loom of fate looms clouded crags
Far fire, burn bale and bold
Destiny forge, new hammers mold
to blast and bind the present past:
The cycle throes, at last, at last . . . . .

The rocks are chanting, the mountains dance
the wind whirls black and bright
on cool lost summer night
Worldgate wide, above worldsend gap,
rainbow ruins from olden world -
flex chaos cave and fluxing curl
crave to crush the present past:
The cycle throes, at last, at last . . . . .

The rocks are chanting, the mountains dance
the wind whirls black and bright
on cool, bleak, last, lost summer nights . . . . .

  XII

     and the eyes of pitted stars.

Upon an ancient lane     grass grows in the paving stones
and banished hordes march     grimly     to the baning of a world

A rift windes in tremendous fog

     to trap a fate
The eager fire frozen      burns hidden      in the dark mists
Nine worlds converge in solemn act      the doom is old:
                                                            the gods are trapped.

When next fury fountains inflame the night -
Flourish world-finish fanfare!
Bold thunder bolt within lightning black
Mountain rise                  Heaven crack.

E-mai