Epic of the Six Darknesses: X

Epic of the Six Darknesses: X


X

Now we’re riding up the spine
gyring skywards
the Fireman shielding me from
storms electric
I am grounded in his presence
safe from the excess

We ride right to the base of the brain
where the amygdal lizard is wrapped
like roots around the stem

The Fireman dragons downward,
hornets around the reptile head
where forked tongue hisses like myth
I swing down western and epic
holding the hose like a vine or a spiderweb
and, grabbing onto the forked tongue,
I go inside the lizard’s mouth
crawl down the ropy throat
and wear that lizard like skin
a ritual mask for dancing
the angers and anguish of living

Now we wrestle
angel lizard cold like fear
ice blood blue and viscous
but outside the Fireman torches its surface
while I do my jig on the inside
dances with lizard
reptile thick with history
the warrior sugars blind like neurons
I howl in fear at these deeper darknesses
all the spaces I have come to discover
all of them bonethick in the alien night
I rage rage against the flaming of the light
I’m at war with the world with life itself

I lunge at the Fireman
I will douse his flame in my bluecold blood
put an end to it all once and forever

then

the Fireman reaches into me
dips his fingers in my holy water
rubs a cross between these lizard eyes


in the name of the former
and of the latter
and of their holocaust
all men
and suddenly I know
God dies with every death
God screams with every scratch
God stuttered when he spoke the Word
little cell god little molecule god
atomic god lepton god
immanent in photon and chemical
morphogenetic in the diamond chaosmos

Suddenly everything clarifies:
lava unfolds into earth and fire
tornadoes untwist into linear winds
lungs untangle from the lunar matrix
flowing water crystals into ice
diamonds snap like soldiers
every word has a single referent
and no meaning is unclear.

The Fireman climbs up on his truck,
revs the engine like a racer
calls me to this feast:
I slough that skin like a lizard
jump on the truck
and we forge on to the memory palace
cross the drawbridge
and bang on the big blue door.


Richard Smyth

Posted over on Anabiosis Press