"For now we shall see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood."
I Cor. xiii, 12-13
Here where I wash your feet in pearls of gothic vision
Here between X-ray cataract and surgical incision
Here where black curtains occlude all the light
Here where you’re ready to put up a fight
Here where your sickness comes home to heal
Here where the voices whisper but never reveal
Here where rusted-hinge doors refuse to close
Here where it’s never a crime to oppose
Here where spiders claim their right to spin
Here in the shambolic mess that we’re in
Here in the cold light filtered through bones and entrails
Here where illusionists blow holes in your sails
Here at the centre of the new ideal
the cutting edge, the scalpel’s cold steel
Here where the embalmers massacre clocks
the body pale marble in the wooden box
drained of blood, hope and need
and failing yet to concede
Here amongst taffeta and raw silk skein
Here where the needle hits the vein
Here where you think that you know what you want
Here between the mascara-ed lashes of Mary Quant
Here where your kimono is guilt gilded green
Here in the shadows of the silver screen
Here submerged in sweet truth and bitter regret
Here where the hammer strikes the firing pin
...the finger to direct
Here in your dreams of Inuit existence
Here on the edge of gravity’s persistence
Here lies your world - built from the ground up
Every stitch unravelled and rethreaded in understanding
Every nail wrought bare from the furnace of your thirst
Every decorative curlicue imbued with purpose
Here your obsession
Here the concessions
Here your compulsion
Here the revulsion
Here your visions
Here your decisions
Here is your lease
Here your peace
Here what you’ve done with it
Here your sharpened wit
Here your open head
Here the books read
Here the things you have seen
Here the places you’ve been
Right here and now.
4 comments:
Thank you rdg.
Funny you should pick out those particular unrhyming lines, they are a distillation of one of the final paragraphs of my novel, Markov Chain:
And for you whose perverse courage or profound stupidity allows you to enter the vault of the Aurora; you whose searching brings you here to read these words etched as they are on the already warped bulkheads of Cabin 13; I give you these warnings:
If it be knowledge you seek then be ye forewarned that knowledge can be an empty burden if there be no ear to hear.
For upon ascending the rigorous face of knowledge you will be confronted by the greater demon of understanding – and he will require a much larger portion of your soul.
He will demand that you unpick the very fabric of your clothing, thread by thread, in order that you may then reweave it in a manner clear and enlightened.
He will require that you question the very knowledge upon whose rungs you tread on your ascent.
And finally he will require you to face him squarely and admit that you know nothing other than what you hold in time to be true, second by second your thoughts can only be clutched to your feverish chest in a futile attempt to allay your inevitable demise.
But perhaps, poor traveller, my words on this wood may serve to give you hope; hope that there is some greater existence to which you might aspire.
Bless you
Here, now is also the only time and place such baggage may be shed for less understanding and more wisdom, less knowing and more seeing beyond our conclusions.
Should I be lucky enough to successfully negotiate the obstacle course and get published... of course!
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