Epic of the Six Darknesses: XIV

Painting by Naza


Epic of the Six Darknesses: XIV


XIV

And so I take a deep breath
and the breath is mine and mine alone
no more darkness in the body

Just one more darkness to overcome:
the darkness of birth
sucking on the seed nipple
bulldog tight
as though holding on for life

But there is already life
I have already been born
at least a thousand times
(I am tired of being born)

So I say out loud
for the first time
“No more birth”

I speak the song of the first born child
adamic
edenic
music
naked like lava shot forth
from the earth hole

I sing the color of rain
on drought ridden desert
I sing the blue tube of fusion
arterial earthworm plunging through the mud
unmitigated syllables burbling
through the ocean
bubbling upward like islands
calling all airborn seeds to dive down deep
within me
plunge like both hands deep into the beach
hold in one hand the dry sand
hold in the other hand the wet
squeeze each hard like hearts
until I feel diamonds sharp and bright
in my palms

I have been born and never will be born again

No more eternal nurturing
no more umbilical prisons
I have torn through the matrix one last time
It is time now to grow
the way all things grow
toward death one day at a time

No more will I be wordless
mouth full of titmilk
I will speak and be separate from the mother
I will take my milk from a cup
I will breathe the air
and know that I am breathing

From now on I will write my own poetry
From now on I will light my own fires

Now falling to my knees
surrounded by sacred trees
fully formed and ready for the world
I look to the stars
see the Fireman descending slowly
a shiny new firetruck in tow

He dismounts his own battered mount
the one I clung to like ice
as we rode through deep spaces
the treacherous curves of the manifold universe

He is still as bright as god was bright
when he first appeared to Moses
so many centuries ago
He hands me this myth
and speaks for one last time:


Take this all of you and read it.
This is the text of my body
spoken through you
the text of a new and everlasting poem.
Do this, then forget who I am.
With that the Fireman burns bright blue
flame orange as the sun sets in fire
he mounts the sun before it
dips below the horizon
and rides it into the night.

I mount the shiny new firetruck
turn the ignition
rev the engine hard
like a teenager on his first drive

cruise like the sun through the stars.


Richard Smyth

Posted over on Anabiosis Press