In the morning came the ash
of the warm hearth, fed fat,
and expired in gluttony,
a red stain,
oh, the taste of the sun,
of superheated materials
upon the lolling tongues,
and I were weak and fatigued,
the soles of my feet gray.
Today is the day I were to burn.
Today is the day I were to be snuffed,
and heavy-like, ataxic,
I sink my teeth into the pleasure of life renewed.
Oh, speak its name, if you dare,
oh, wretched and ashamed,
dressed in animal skins,
lips wet with the fruit flesh,
and you should be scorned,
you who turned your back on the God,
but He loved and He loved,
and now it were to be,
were to be that the skin unravels fully,
that the fruit flesh
of brains and bowels
are to be uncoiled,
and what is left is the new world,
the new pulse,
the new bones
tucked into the new jaw
ready to savor the smoke-smell
of a day born from the purity of fire.
Yes—there is but one place I were to go,
and I knew it,
and I came to it, not myself, no,
but in that thought one has
out in the fields one day,
in the rhythmic gyrations
of noontide weedings,
of killing life to breed more life,
yes, my maggot brain did understand then.
I swear it were good, it were good—
and my hands bled,
for I dug my nails deep into the palms
to assure myself that it were true,
that the angel did speak to me.
For the voice I heard were not me,
except that it were—
it were in the layers between flesh and bone,
baked into the writhing cells,
a secret verse,
the music of the spheres
to be fished out,
like a chain from the gutter,
the words we all knew
when we were babes
and lost more and more each year—
yes, you know the words too,
that is what I say to you,
you know the words
as we all know the words,
for we as many were once we
as one.
Do you know what I mean?
Have you begun to comprehend?
Let us go.
The morning light is silvery
for the rains approach,
to threaten our flame,
to leave our minds
in the obscurity of invention and distortion—
innovation was a pestilence,
the mind chants, “return, return,”
when entered into a trance state,
have you tried it?
You should, perhaps you would see me there—
in your mind’s eye.
The woods are deep, and I were afraid—
not for the proceedings at hand,
but rather the vile fear of being stopped,
of my flame made to dance
in the material winds of this hostile earth,
and my direction shifted through no desire,
no request of my own.
Do you know where we are going?
Have you seen it ever,
when the sun first rises,
upon the dew that idles
upon the closed flowers,
in the aberrations we call natural beauty,
all distractions, all diversions
from the common root,
the only chance for human happiness,
if it were to be called human at all,
and I were to grow so old, so old,
I fear my body will not last
until the great thing comes,
and I must rely on you to go in my stead,
you who would kill me
and eat my innards
should it give you another foul cycle in the heavens,
rat-like and conspiring.
There, at the east?
Do you see it?
Look within.
That there, that is the pit.
I do know them, I know them well—
they were born in the same hearth as me,
begging and mewling
to be returned to the womb,
so small in the scope of life,
and forced to grow,
grow like tumors
as we contort and grope
and swell and scab over—
as we lose that oneness
that existed in all of us before manifestation, that slick nectar
called potential
that ran down the thighs of their mothers,
and we were to be happy there,
but they stripped us away,
unwilling,
weaned from the breast too soon,
and we were forced to be men,
to take man’s names,
to become distinct souls.
And we lived in misery,
and we lived in misery,
and we lived in misery.
No, let us find joy!
You see it there.
You see how the flesh deteriorates,
and something beautiful emerges down there, beneath the flesh,
how it uncoils and spills
onto the body next to it,
how it joins and unites
and makes the discarded individual
into the invincible one.
Of course the spirit is ugly now,
it is still weak,
as its conscience is small, so small,
so few are willing to throw away
their hands,
their eyes,
though they could touch and see
and taste forever in all directions,
were they to be one.
And the question on your lips,
that hangs bated in the air,
that would be who shall get to experience
this earthly miracle,
this wondrous happenstance,
what hands shall fall to the ground
and worship the host of holy holies
that will be born?
Who will get to wear
the skin of the new man,
the coming man,
the man who is not man
but born out of the wreckage and ruins
of their failed concept of man?
I will tell you. I am too old.
I cannot participate in the miracle.
Oh, yes—in another life,
I would pull my very bones apart,
put the pit into its place,
combine and collide
and diffuse into the refuse.
I would choose joy!
I would choose joy!
But this flesh has known
misery as a lover,
and it were not to make
the sanctity of the pit unclean.
So I bring you as offering,
and I give you thusly to the miracle,
and I here,
as I stand here upon the edge,
I will be your witness.
I will see the next stage of humanity
live out
as your offals putrefy and liquidate,
as the red runs brown
then yellow green with bile,
then purple under the afternoon sun.
I will watch as you shed the cells
that held you captive in the body of man, where you languished,
and where the soul called out,
unending in desolate keen,
begging to be restore as part to whole.
I will watch as
the manacles of human form
are unshackled,
as you are shorn and the black fleece
bagged and burned,
and it will be ecstatic.
I will live on for you
and tell the world of your ecstasy.
Oh, if you are to cry,
let them within the pit see
and hold you in their arms,
in their one arms,
and let them gaze upon your face
with their one eyes,
and let your eyes and your arms
feel the warmth that abounds
until it overtakes the mind,
like a gentle current,
and what is left is not man nor matter—
but something new altogether.
An event.
Oh, and how the pit will open for you too!
The pit will open for you too—hie-e-lai-lai,
The pit will open for you too—e-lai-lay-lo.
And the soles of our ashen feet
will be made red from dancing.
CASSE-COUILLES 