The Devil's Door (2003)

Saxon churches had
an infernal door facing
north: some say it was
where the pagan
population entered in
order to worship at
the old Pagan site the
churches had taken over:
Your bias was known
by which door you
entered: Some Sussex
people believed that
the Devil waited outside
the door for anyone
foolish to use it: Most
Sussex churches now
keep the north door
permanently blocked:
Recall that Oran
travelled north from
where he was buried
in the Columba
abbey footers, descending
down and north into
the infernal ice regions
of Hell: This Well
drills north, it swells
with cold-as-hell waters:
At the end of my
workouts at the gym
I ease down into a
cold splash bath and
remain there some 5
minutes applying
physic to sore knees
& back with 48-degree
water: Seal-cold waters,
North Sea waters:
Survivors of the wreck
of the Titanic died of
hypothermia in these
waters, blueing into
tiny frozen clumps
knocking like billiard
balls against the icebergs:
When I can stand
no more in the splash
I submerge, hanging in
that terrific cold for a
moment praying "by
the Rock of Saint
Columba sworn": Upon
Oran's cold-splashed
bones I build this deep
chapel: Through the
Devil's Door I egress
and transgress, ripping
my daily vowel
movement: Baptized by
the waters the north
craps its icebergs into:
Harrowed by the ice-lords
and snow-queens found
there, brute island after
island: to Callanish &
the Orkneys & beyond
where the cruel north
gale of Thor hammers
& hearkens: Hell's balls
bell a thrall of lacy icy
fire: Primal foam where
drear demiurges roam:
North door ringed with
skulls: Where the bony
apparition lies in wait
to confound & ferry us
home: I'm writing runes
today on the Devil's Door
for all who would transgress
here in the pedigree of
most ancient stone: Down
and north, sound the
buckets down to that
dark island where the
bones of the fathers pack
the loam: Marrow this
song with those cold ribs
& ghost peckers: They
are the rock upon which
all churches we know
grow:For those who would
worship here you must
use the queer door so fair
and foul which opens to
an upside down demesne
of backassed whirl:
Heaven's down here, folks
-- below -- it's where the
angels all go when pieties
fail and Leviathan's gullet
is a beehive cell: Not so,
sighs the wind outside
the Devil's Door.
Not here. And
welcome home.