"THE OBELISKS OF BAALBEK"

 Thanatos and Eros wrestle forever
atop three caliginous Lebanese moons
and far surges the towers of Ba'al
above the mystical cyclopean masonry

great triangular henges of neolithic earthwork
prismatic to view from the heavenly sky
blesses the Phoenician travellers of Baalbek :
"take this cedar branch and bless the world with it !"

sturdy wire of  iron and spearheads made of bronze;
golden garments and copper ingots and crucibles;
crystal beads, bracelets, crests, pendants and sheaths
lie scattered about in the grass

celadon pottery, steatite and jasper figurines
being worked at in street-shops
and in the turquoise tents of merchantry
are fine in their craftmanship

ancient crockery of the Canaanites
and the beautiful works of Nubian ebony
glisten beneath the flaxen crescent scythe

the fallen obelisks of Baalbek soak
in a herbage steam of natural poetry
coarse, wolven and silvery lunar,
draped in the iron bell-rings of Heliopolis !

suffocated snippets of awful sounds
blare from the bent trumpets of Jupiter
as the dreary wings of Ba'al collapse
across the twilight Levant