Styx makes a great ouroboros
And flows into itself:
A ring the gods slip on
Before their oath-making.
On the left bank souls gather
Like so many flies
On the gashed flank of an antelope.
Those without obols
Harass those with them:
Don't you remember what I did for you
Before night sealed our eyes?
Don't you remember our ties
Of wine and blood?
Charon, standing on the right bank,
Smokes a cigarette.
He muses over his account-books
Which are unbalanced
And will remain so until
The last ferryload crosses.

Acheron bubbles muddily.
Shelves of peat, strata of peat
Suck it down from below:
It goes as slowly
As one who flees a phantasm
In a two A.M. dream.
Wade through it and you will emerge
Sandal-less, stained
To the tops of your calves,
Bent double under woes
That press your shoulder-blades
Like a sack of rocks--
Eyes, ears, nostrils, lips
Sealed with wax
That bears the solemn impress
Of some Ashurbanipal.
Though walking three abreast
You will think yourself alone.

Phlegethon bears hermetic grudges
To keep it blazing.
See their uncertain progress:
Alexander who flipped Asia like a bowl,
Caesar who fed Gaul ground bones.
Their purple cloaks are ash.
Their foreheads are branded with laurel.
What can they have in common
With the legion of petty souls
That attends them (desk-workers
And ditch-diggers, soil-coaxers
And stock-traders, bearers all
Of maimed horoscopes)?
What can they have in common?
Oil in the blood.

As for Lethe,
You will know it: all along
Its meandering banks
Are stands of willow, poplar,
Cypress tall and narrow.
Ciphers of scent
Rise from mingled wildflowers.
So limpid the water
You can count the grains of sand
Or the slim streaks of gold
That might be passing fish.
Burbling in the Phrygian mode
It calls you: Come and rest.
Child, you have labored long.
Sit you down and rest.
Persuaded in bowels and marrow,
You make your hand a cup,
Drink...
Raw from your mother's womb, tabula rasa,
You set out on the road to Styx.