□

I could put in 

my ego, id and super-ego

my pre, sub and unconscious

my persona and personality

my shadowy archetypal vibrations

I could put in

father and son

and their counter feminine entities 

the dark one and the ghost

I could put in

albedo, rubedo and nigredo

sub-atomic molecular activity

astrological workings

and synchronicities 

I could put in

attraction and repulsion

the perpetuum mobile as revolution 

and mercurius as aqua vitae

I could put in

the echo of narcissism 

in the castration of saturn

before jupiter was to be eaten

chomp-through like an apple

like them in the garden, charmed

she ate from the coiling hinge-jaw

while the hesperides looked on

lusting after the newly spoiled flesh

I couldn’t put in

the astrologer, for all the world

is in fact not a box but a sphere

resting upon his shoulders

Words: Lynda Phelan

Image: Video Still from Lapis Philosophorum by Lynda Phelan