Widdershins for Hekate

Zeus revered (Hekate) above all the other ((goddesses who came to his aid in his battle with the Titans)), and let her have her share of the earth, the sea and the starry sky, or rather, he did not deprive her of this threefold honour, which she had previously enjoyed under the earlier gods, the Titans, but let her retain what had been awarded to her at the first distribution of honours and dignities.

She was therefore a true Titanness of the Titans, even though this is never expressly stated. On the contrary she is said to be that kataiis, that “Strong One” who bore to Phorkys the female sea-monster Skylla. Tales are told of her love-affairs with gods of the sea: with Triton, in particular, whom Hesiod calls euybias, “of wide force.” On the other hand, it was also said, that Hekate was mistress of the Underworld and every night led around a swarm of ghosts, accompanied by the barking of dogs. She was even called Bitch and She-Wolf.

She was literally “close” to us, in the sense that she stood before the doors of most of our houses under the name of Prothyraia, the goddess who helped women in childhood (or sometimes cruelly opposed them), and was also to be seen at meeting places of three ways, where images of her were set up: three wooden masks upon a pole, a threefold statue with three faces looking in three direction.


-- Carl Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks





WIDDERSNINS FOR HEKATE

Sept. 28
She has been with me from
my mother’s birth-cries,
that swell inside first seas
which left me torn and
gasping on red sheets
dying to get back.
Did she smile, did she
dive, did she howl inside
that searing pain
with her pack of dark
she-wolves? I don’t know,
I can’t, it’s not for me
to say, to speak of
the dark feminine,
not without great peril
of the blackest one’s
physic, diseasing my
deep courts with
a wild, rude distress.
She demands her
due from one of
three masks hanging
at the triple
crossroads outside
this dreaming town;
they skew off toward
each road yet are
one upon each other,
a threefold glance
which cauls a darker
view, trebled with
sea-depths, moon-
drenched nights
& what soars down
beneath the keels
of graves. Oh dark
immeasurable as
inconsolable, rich
as spermacetti oil
spooring backwards
through my life, like
a she-shaped windmill
turning widdershins
in an evil breeze
still holy between
the black trees of
my knees, a sexual
contempting breath
both hers and
her husband Set’s,
the feral beast
of summer scorch.
My dreams are votives
in her down-spiralling
cathedral, endlessly
repeating its charm
over the bubbling froth
inside my skull,
invoking the power
of all entropies,
half-bat, half-newt,
full nude & reeking
riot. I dream amid
those drowned
upsidedownward
pews, working at a
desk in corporate
bowels where I
sleep old hangovers
off, reeking of pussy’s
whisky pelt, a scent
I could not savior,
much less use in
any forward way
to orient a path
back out of the labyrinth
I’d fashioned in
the name of what
is lost in losing love,.
She rules a barrow-altar
with her mojo jig and jones
shades and vapors
of the will which hews
these paper stones.
She rules the breath
and depth between
each word I’ve cabled
cross the sea to You,
giving shape to
steely semaphores
the way I learned
of love not in
but round the
words we said, as
if the only way
to name love was
pyre its infinity
on a beach far down
my spine, alone
among the
hymnal froth
and sursurrations
of what purely
walked away.
Each wave is tidal
of she who howled
inside that woman’s
yes and ravened forth
when the real girl
disappeared,
bidding me to wake
and walk in her
eternal crashings
of desire. She hymens
my hosannahs with
amens of blue-to-
blacker dearth, ever
keeping me bound
to the troth
which by threes only
is found -- three deep,
thrice lost, triple-faced
with maid and matron
and black crone implied
upon each other. She
will not be known;
that due was deigned
by Zeus to ferry on
its course after she
helped him beat
her Titan lovers down
on land in sky down seas;
honored her by letting
her stay dark in the
triune regnum of
the witch--the hex,
the bloody gates
of birth, the
vexation of swept
abysms which hauls
so wildly in all I
cannot, must not say.
Lord, how many
women have I fucked
like a priest of
her wolfpack? How
many power chords
did I belt out on
a stage that
rounded past the yowl
of amplifiers to batten
on my throat, hungry,
no, starved for ever
more? How many
red cracks have I
shot these jisms
of venusian noise
only to find a darker
mouth begging for
the hot-blackest words
I know? I pay
homage here to
a sonnet’s drab
with cold black waves
of ink, sitting
on a soft white chair
at the hour when
dead folks dream
on spits she turns,
my rondos stolen
from their burning
lips: & pile them here
like spinning herms
where three roads
fuse and spread
brine and musk
and corruption
like oils into
the air, an
infernal holy scent.
Perhaps it spoors
from the ditch-drab’s
widened who waits
for me at those roads,
one eye boring
back at me
with the spectral
vision of three masks,
warning yet inviting
me to plunge a
balls-deep a rectumed
truth, God and
love be damned
behind what
the Ram of Heaven
breaks. I will never
fully speak the
aegis of that
darkened swale
whose low laugh
riptides me far
from home,
though I will try
till sun-yolk hangs in ribbons
from the gibbous moon,
till all coupled angels
cross each other thrice and swoon,
till she and I wind up the
charm and lie at last enwombed.





Shall they hoist me up
And show me to the shouting variety
Of censuring Rome? Rather a ditch in Egypt
Be gentle grave unto me! Rather on Nilus’ mud
Lay me stark-naked and let the waterflies
Blow me into abhorring! Rather make
My country’s high pyramides my gibbet
And hang me in chains!

-- Cleopatra, Antony and Cleopatra V.iii.65-72



Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still:
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman colour’d ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn’d fiend
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;
But being both from me, both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell:
Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in doubt
Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

-- Shakespeare Sonnet 144

***

THEY WYRD SISTERS

Macbeth, I.i

A desert place.
Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches

First Witch

When shall we three meet again
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

Second Witch

When the hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.

Third Witch

That will be ere the set of sun.

First Witch

Where the place?

Second Witch

Upon the heath.

Third Witch

There to meet with Macbeth.

First Witch

I come, Graymalkin!

Second Witch

Paddock calls.

Third Witch

Anon.

ALL

Fair is foul, and foul is fair:
Hover through the fog and filthy air.