Icon of Coil: the sphynx [taryn]

September 13, 2002

the sphynx [taryn]

[wyrmpit]

the Galliard lays (limber, loose, coy as a black feline trapped beneath tanned skin) before the massive speakers in the gathering room, music pulsing (weaving, throbbing) against his back as it pours rampant in tonal rain

as if to wash the very sins from his skin

how very impossible

for they've woven themselves into the very fabric of his being, but the young Dancer ponders not such thoughts, instead allowing his eyes free reign (the tyrant king) across the book spreadeagle on his palms, words, phrases (choruses) memorized so long ago, uttered softly beneath his breath

In a dim corner of my room, For longer than my fancy thinks, A beautiful and silent Sphynx Has watched me throuhg the shifting gloom.
Inviolate and immobile,
She does not rise, she does not stir,
For silver moons are nought to her,
And nought to her the suns that reel.

Red follows gray across the air
The waves of moonlight ebb and flow
But with the dawn she does not go
And in the night-time she is there.

Dawn follow Dawn, and Nights grow old
And all the while this curious cat
Lies crouching on the Chinese mat
With eyes of satin rimmed with gold.

Upon the mat she lies and leers,
And on the tawny throat of her
Flutter the soft and silky fur
Or ripples to her pointed ears.

his voice (rich) weaving and wrapping itself around the music, an instrument unto itself (a bloody cello or crying scythe) in half-hearted, hypnotic draw 'cross the silken chords in his throat, his eyes half-mast in this simple, reclusive pleasure, the words read for none but himself

there is no denying the songs once sung by that tongue beneath the light of moot's moon, in a time long ago and almost forgotten (denied) - the ache buried impossibly within

Come forth my lovely seneschal, So somnolent, so statuesque, Come for you exquisite grotesque, Half woman.... and half animal
Come forth my lovely languorous Sphinx,
And put your head upon my knee,
And let me stroke your throat and see
Your body spotted like a Lynx.

And let me touch those curving claws,
Of yellow ivory, and grasp
The tail that like a monstrous Asp
Coils round your heavy, velvet paws.

A thousand weary centuries
Are thing, while I have hardly seen
Some twenty summers cast their green
For Autumn's gaudy livieries.

But you can read the Hieroglphys,
On the great sandstone obelisks,
And you have talked with Basilisks,
And you have looked on Hippogriffs.

O tell me, were you standing by
When Isis to Osiris knelt,
And did you watch the Egyptian melt
Her union for Anthony,

And drink the jewel-drunken wine,
And bed her head in mimic awe,
To see the huge pro-consul draw
The salted tunny from the brine?

And did you mark the Cyprian kiss
With Adon on his catafalque,
And did you follow Amanalk
The god of Heliopolis?

And did you talk with Thoth, and did
You hear the moon-horned Io weep
And did you know the painted kings who sleep
Beneath the wedge-shaped Pyramid?

(taryn)
She has been in her room, trying on her dress (a FORMAL gown!) again, smoothing it over slender curves and practicing walking in the heels gotten with it, preening - she is, after all, still a teenage girl. The music from beyond in the room, expressed in subtle movments that causes the fabric to shimmer about her, her smile that of a delighted child at christmas even as hands tell their own story...
...though finally the dress is put carefully back on its hanger, the shoes tucked away and tattered shorts and tshirt turned tanktop pulled from her pack... -she really needs to get some more clothing - and barefeet carry her toward the great room, intending on finding some sort of snack.

a purr begets those thickened tones, crawling on the floor before him as the bale-fire smoke caught deeply in his eyes, revenant propechy the Spiral's lazy coil that weaves through his bones and dances from his tongue - a talent born of the Mother, and matured beneath the Father's guidance

Life up your large black satin eyes Which are like cushions where one sinks Fawn at my feet, fantastic Sphynx, And sing me all your memories
Sing to me of the Jewish maid
Who wandered with Holy Child
And how you led them through the wild
And how they slept beneath your shade.

Sing to me of that odorous
Green eve when crouching by the marge
You heard from Adrian's gilded barge
The laughter of Antinous,

And lapped the stream, and fed your drouth
And watched with hot and hungry stare
The ivory body of that rare
Young slave with his pomegranite mouth.

mismatched eyes snap upwards the entrace of the girl into the room, but the presence soon ignored

Sing to me of the Labyrinth In which the two-formed bull was stalled Sing to me of the night you crawled Across the temple's granite plinth
When through the purple corridors
The screaming scarlet Ibis flew
In terror, and a horrid dew
Dripped from the moaning Mandragores,

And the great torpid crocodile
Within the tank shed slimy tears,
And tore the jewels from his ears
And staggered back into the Nile

And the Priests cursed you with shrill psalms
As in your claws you seized their snake
And crept away with it to slake
Your passions by the shuddering palms....

She pauses, listening, head canted to the right, simply watching... letting the dancing slide of words murmured by silken tongue slide over her (grippingslidingoozecoilingaroundskin) footsteps halting, stuttering, before continuing on into the kitchen, grabbing a muffin and soda before returning to sit on the floor, against the wall across from him (so as not to disturb the one who ignores her presense anyway) and simply... listens...

Who were your lovers, who were they Who wrestled for you in the dust? Which was the vessel of your Lust What Leman had you every day?
Did giant lizards come and crouch
Before you on the reedy banks?
Did Gryphons with great metal flanks
Leap upon you in your trampled crouch?

Did monstrous hippopotami
Come sidling to you in the mist
Did gilt-scaled dragons writeh and twist
With passion as you passed them by?

And from that brick-built Lycian tomb
What horrible Chimaera came
With fearful heads and fearful flame
To breed new wonders from your womb?

those eyes, those unnerving unnatural eyes lift and settle upon the silent girl, not a beat missed of his words, his voice a presence that combs fingers through firey hair as if to lift it from her ears (scalp it from her bones) for that trancing whisper to sink its talons into her flesh

Or had you shameful secret guests And did you harry to your home Some Nereid coiled in amber foam With curious rock-crystal breasts;
Or did you, treading through the froth
Call to the brown Sidonian
For tidings of Leviathan,
Leviathan of Behemoth?

Or did you when the sun was set
Climb upon the cactus covered slope
To meet your swarthy Ethiop
Whose body was of polished jet?

Or did you while the earthen skiffs
Dropt down gray Nilotic flats
At twilight and the flickering bats
Flew round the temple's triple glyphs

Steal to the border of the bar
And swim across the silent lake
And slink into the vault and make
The Pyramid your lupanar,

Till from each black sarcophagus
Rose up the painted, swath'ed dead
Or did you lure unto your bed
The ivory-horned Trageophos?

Head tilts slightly, watching, listening, (swimming in silken touch that caresses throught hair) closely to the words that spill in continued chant to (eataway) slide (slither) through ears to dance within her mind... muffin held though ignored under the press of settling gaze, soda sat by hip, as (vivid) eyes meet his evenly, soaking in the words that continue to spill

but the sticky torrent of words stops, silence crashing between them, until it is broke by a mere whisper

"Do you know of whom it is I read....."

She's almost.. afraid.. to admit her answer - but the only way to learn is to ask, yes? and her voice is almost as soft as his as she shakes her head slightly..
"No, Asher..."
Though the words are beautiful and still slide through her mind, teasing, tempting..

"His name is Oscar Wilde..... do you know it?"

Again, she shakes her head.... slightly..
"no, sir... I've never read much poetry before..."

a soft chuckle finds its way into his throat, thick as rolling thunder across the open plane between them (what judgement lurks in those eyes) head tilting to rest on a languid shoulder

"What have you read..... if at all?"

she smirks slightly and rolls her eyes
"It's not like I _can't_ read. My parents just thought it poetry worthless. After they were gone though I've read Sci-fi, fantasy.. a little bit of horror fiction.. just slowly working my way through whatever I could get my hands on when I could get my hands on it."
A shrug, and she finally opens her soda and takes a sip

"I saw you with the Herb book the day my quarters were unlocked...... I know you can read."

smirked (smiled), twisting to sit upright, body moving as sveltly as his tongue

"I had meant poetry...... none at all you can remember?"

"Oh, yeah."
Shrugged, but she grins - for all she knew he would have thought she was looking at the pretty pictures. Another shake of her head follows..
"Not unless you count Dr. Suess from when I was a kid."

he may well have, had she not mentioned reading and researching - so far trusting what comes from Karnala's child's mouth

"Pity."

smirked (although true regret sombers the blue haze within his eyes) breifly, then the Galliard rises, book snapped closed (a literary beartrap), bare feet silent the passage between speakers and the wall against which the Theurge sits

"Sometimes.... Taryn..... what begets the strongest desires..."

The Best Known Works of Oscar Wilde, circa 1940, held out within her reach

"..... is inspiration."

as the book is taken, he already walks away

She shrugs a little, then watches him move(stalk) toward her, slow smile sliding over her lips as gaze crawls up his form, until mismatched gaze is met, and she carefully wipes her hand before reaching up to take the book... holding his gaze a moment, before watching him walk away...
... then her gaze falls, and head lowers and under the soft throb of music still playing she begins to read, curls tumbling down to frame her face as she looses herself in the words before her