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TWENTY ODES
1) And God created everything And Satan tried to destroy
in turn, and all things belonged all things in turn for none
to Him. So I belong to Him, belonged to him, nor nothing
and you, and all things besides. could be his. And I am not his
And Satan also is His creation nor you nor anyone, and yet he is
then. Satan too is His. the lord and master of the world.
But who am I and why do I exist?
Is God my father or Satan? Whose
salvation is mine to kiss, to embrace,
to hope for all these days? Why am
I compelled to choose between the
Creator and his own creation? May 12/11.
2) I have cried out to God and never I have cried out to Satan and never
received an answer out of His lips, no received an answer out of his lips, no
not once. I have seen the winds call to not once. I have seen the soldiers
their own children and watched the murdered on the blade bent winds of
mountains fall only to be born again their own consciences and viewed the
but never have I experienced such things. bodies stacked as cord wood, or ashes.
If I argue myself the servant of God
I prove myself the fool for believing
in Him. And if I argue myself the
servant of Satan than I prove myself
the fool for believing he exists. Heaven
and Hell I have seen from where I stand. May 12/11.
3) A woman weeps or yet a man and A woman weeps or yet a man and
still they cling to faith. Faith clings to cursing their faith curses all. And
God and what does God cling to I faith lost clings to nothing and what
wonder, what sets His mind at peace in does Satan gain by faith lost, even
the lateness of Creation? Does even He faith in his own existence? Does any
know? Does even He care? hope cling where there is none?
I have cried and I have laughed,
lost and gained a faith all of a kind
its own, and the memories of God
cling to me and the thoughts of Satan
echo within me, but who were they
and who am I now that I have none? May 12/11.
4) Why do we seek a God? Toward Why must there be a devil for
what action does He guide us by us to imagine Hellfire by? Why
seeking Him? What does God want must each criminal be possessed,
if not our worship, but why then give each sin the fault of some other
us the will to choose otherwise? evil thing, for it can never be our
Why does God despair we ignore Him? own? Why do we ignore ourselves?
I look for myself but never find
myself as I was before. I try to
imagine what God sees or Satan
knows but only come face to face
with myself and no one else. I
can’t ignore myself much anymore. May 12/11.
5) I tread through mud and watch Does Satan have to walk in no man’s
the sparrows tread through sky and land to be believed as the prince of lies?
imagine God made us both but I Does Satan need to scream and spout his
don’t know why. And a hawk catches monstrous talk or else be forgotten forever
her and I am caught and a bullet hit my as less than a sparrow’s cry? I close my
arm and I fall, and no one catches me. eyes and dream of what eyes have not seen.
We try to imagine the good but the
evil deeds of our lesser angels comes
through all the same. Is God our excuse
or Satan for the crime’s we’ve made?
Why do we fault each other and die
when our fates are all the same? May 12/11.
6) What has the thought of God done What has the thought of Satan
for us? We hope in all that we cannot done for us? We rise in terror
see and by hoping acknowledge death at the thought that beyond death
and accept its ending upon us. Is awaits the killer of souls to devour
that enough, the vaguest hope, the shortest us all. Does eternity care if a sin
breath between the finite and the infinite? is taken up or taken down?
Will I exist after I am dead and my
flesh is spent as coins at a passing fair?
Will I remain essentially the man I was,
or become an enfant, child, some other
form alien to all I can conceive of now?
What question least terrifies me the most? May 12/11.
7) Eden and paradise and the garden Hell and oblivion and the fiery
ground of eternity walked on by angels seas of burning souls, or the
and pure white souls. No tear is shed frozen wastes of Cocytus and
nor eyes left to see the death and here the demons walk and here
suffering of previous lives lifetimes the sinners bleed and spend all
ago. Is that payment enough for all the eternity paying for the little that
pain we’ve shed? they have done.
I have been to my own hell and suffered
there, nor turning back in my flight did I
stop to touch upon heaven where there is
nothing but peace, peace spent against the
weight of knowing what peace is not. For
peace is not life, nor heaven made for life. May 12/11.
8) We want there to be a God to We want there to be a Satan to
explain it all to us. If something explain something to us, for if
is higher than we are than all things evil has a name, has a face than
are not in vain, nor suffering, nor all things revolve around him and
hope, nor even death. Else we are no hint of evil’s taint is left to us
adrift in a sea of nothingness. as portion for the evils we have done.
We want to believe in something else
nothing is there for us to believe in. And
when all things are taken, all things are
left what is there for us, what portion ours?
Is heaven secure or hell made ready if we
are the makers of such things in turn? May 12/11.
9) Who is God? Is God to be found Who is Satan? Is Satan to be found
in wave and water, mountain, cloud or in fire and flood, in the trenches and
the stars themselves? Is God us? Are the mud and all the soldiers’ guns?
we the source of God, the creators of Do we need the thought of him to keep
the Creator? How empty a heart must be alive the hope that we are not him in turn?
to need make the maker of ourselves. Is his creation the making of our sanity?
In the end we are what we are. I
guess that proves as sure a point as
any I could hope to name. I don’t
know if there is a God or Satan
watching all but this I know, that we
are, for now and utterly and eternally
or not at all. We are though we are
or at least we choose ourselves to be. May 12/11.
10) War is a hard mistress and death Peace is a hard mistress and life
a harder one. Life is filled of sorrow a harder one. Death alone is full of
and nothing but death clings to it. sorrows, for it takes nothing with it.
Peace and war are ours to take and
sorrow and sufferings we have made for
no end, no purpose, save that they are. May 12/11.
11) The envious lion kills even The lands of cold and the lands
his own young to savour death of heat, the lands of desert and
in all its forms. Along the edges the plains where the grasses flow,
of eternal night it stalks itself. all these the dead lion ruled over.
Traitors to a cause that they don’t
understand mankind hunts and kills
and shatters even the mirror of their
own actions, as a killer would. May 12/11.
12) Actaeon ripped apart by his And now the gods lie dead
own dogs and there is Artemis and none remembers them,
bathing still, surrounded in the no not even the dogs they used
splendor of the hunter’s blood. to kill their masters.
Cry to the wind and perhaps the
wind will cry to you, or sing, or
call out the legacies of blood.
Though the wind is silent through
it all my passing love. May 12/11.
13) There’s a black barge of thorns Dissolving in the crowds becoming
upon the golden river, the sacred nile silences all themselves, but shadows
where all the souls must go when they of gold, of golden darknesses cast upon
have died. the deep.
Sing to the wind and perhaps the wind will
sing to you in the company of scarecrows
along the edge of silences I don’t dare speak
of, before dissolving in the crowds to become
a silence to myself. May 12/11.
14) And they who dwell within us all I forgive you of your treacheries,
have secrets yet to keep against the forgive you of your betrayals still.
thought of anyone knowing who we are. In the pale room what is left to forgive?
Who am I to know who I truly am even
in the company of they who wound me
least? Who are you, if not a beast? May 12/11.
15) Flight thru the lands of night and Day comes and passes all its
the fire clown waits to burn the day own, to its own end, its own
to ash. beginning.
What will come to us has already come
to face a day and a night forever in the
company of ourselves, in the company
of whatever gods we serve. May 12/11.
16) Ajad, and at Ajad the warriors At Ajaldria the women built
built the pyre for their kings and their pyres to sacrifice themselves
for their lords. in mockery of their husband’s lives.
All the collectors find are bones and
ashes, but I am sure a mighty empire
once ruled here, gone forever more. May 12/11.
17) I have nothing left to give except I have given all and still more
what I was before. And when even is left to be so given. All is mine
that is spent then I am lost to you and to spend on all I wish to spend upon.
to myself the most. Yet I am alone.
Money owes no allegiance to they
who use it, neither does time, life,
pain nor joy. We are spent of them
yet never are they spent of us. May 12/11.
18) Tired all my limbs fail of their I never rest nor never do I tire.
own accord and I lay myself down The whole of existence is mine
to sleep. to do with as I please.
When I rise I have no purpose
nor in dreams no purpose clings to
me. I am set adrift of my own self. May 12/11.
19) All we have done we have lost All we have lost we have gained
and I have died with each word said. and we shall gain all things again.
Yet I am not spent, nor God nor Satan. Even spent and lost with God, with
I am not dead though eternally dead. Satan, even dead I am content.
We rise with healing in our wings and
then we rise no more. The greater we
come the greater our losses come. Yet
even the losses incurred are worth the price. May 12/11.
20) In a shadowland life breaks down In a heaven no man can describe
and even thoughts of salvation fall away. Satan screams nor can he find the
Sin rises and sin dies and nothing is left reason he was born. Virtues cling
to believe in anymore. God does not smile and burn him and he is lost, so
nor laugh but remains as stone remains. utterly, terribly lost. And I sit and
And I am alone. I was always ever alone. comfort him and then I walk away.
Who am I? Who are you? Who do
you want to be now that you are gone
away from me, away from yourself,
away from everything you thought
you’d be? What will you do now my
passing love, my passing tear, my all? May 12/11.
THIRTY LANDAYS (A style of Afghan poetry.)
1) Don’t wake him for the he is tired and
I am alone my love. Let my husband sleep. May 12/11.
2) And they will never stop their cursings
for my birth but in the dark I curse them all. May 12/11.
3) Qasifyia is weeping for her son is dead and
we all comfort her in the dust of the morning. May 12/11.
4) At Jalalaban her body was torn and left by the
dust of the road, and we carried her to burial. May 12/11.
5) A drink of water and a few grains of sand and
only this is given to reward a daughter’s birth. May 12/11.
6) And the men they could not save left the bruises upon
us, for we lived and so many died, and we were blamed. May 12/11.
7) Prison and there she is left, twelve years old, for
being alone, and now she is still alone, in her cell. May 12/11.
8) Zlyura, poor Zlyura left in another land, land of
the dead for no one is left but her, and she is no one. May 12/11.
9) And the rags we wear and the weddings we attend are
all the same, revealing too much of the little that we have. May 12/11.
10) And if all men died what would be left for us but
peace and life and hope? Yes, what would be left for us? May 12/11.
11) Cry out that they may hear us, that the wind
may be left to carry our words to them, as curses. May 13/11.
12) A scar, a bruise, a dying breath, and all
these things are left to he who killed me. May 13/11.
13) Desert and jackals and bones. All these belong
to them, belong to soldiers as I belong to them. May 13/11.
14) So the knife has found its mark and he is dead.
Had I been the one to kill him there would be nothing left. May 13/11.
15) My daughter is dead and he is dead. And I am
grieved that he did not die sooner before he killed her. May 13/11.
16) Dust is but life for we are dust and my bones rotted
through become dust, as the soul of my husband is. May 13/11.
17) And the wedding feast is ended and the tears begin
again, and what is left of tears but sorrow barren of itself? May 13/11.
18) Qasipha has taken her own life, and now she is not even
given the chance for burial. Her broken mouth seems happy. May 13/11.
19) All the same we take her to Illyuran, weight her of our
grief and lay her beneath the skin of the desert, to be taken. May 13/11.
20) Our grief is consumed in the skins of stone, flesh of sand,
loss of life our grief is consumed forever by its very being. May 13/11.
21) In our life we huddle for fear of pain and in our dreams
the makers of our pain huddle together and then dissolve away. May 13/11.
22) And the imams speak out against nothing and the men
speak out against nothing for we are considered nothing. May 13/11.
23) Who will cry out against injustice if no one can cry out?
Even the spirits of the dead would cry if they could. May 13/11.
24) I have seen the sun bleed her tears as I have bled mine.
I have heard the moon sing her grief in answer to my own. May 13/11.
25) And there is the sorrow when a girl is born and sorrow
when a man dies. What is left when a girl dies, what sorrow? May 13/11.
26) It is all taken, all sorrow is taken when a girl dies and nothing
is left, no tears, no grief remain. It is as if the girl were stone. May 13/11.
27) If I had the knife and his throat before me would I take
his life? Would he take mine? All the answer that I need. May 13/11.
28) And the foreign soldiers come and they offer no hope
nor comfort either, nor knowledge even of who they are. May 13/11.
29) I sweep away the dust, sweep the bones away, sweep
even myself away til I am nothing and no one anymore. May 13/11.
30) My husband is dead and now I must follow him. At
the very least we shall not go to the same place after death. May 13/11.
HAIKU
Help the little sparrow
back into the nest of
the eagle. May 13/11.
Why does the man stare
at her reflection so? Ah,
he fears they will leave him. May 13/11.
Stronger than pain the
scorpion returns to the jaws
of the jackal. May 13/11.
Feel the wind scream?
It is because you were
born my son. May 13/11.
Fire is dancing upon
the roof of the man
who cheated me. May 13/11.
What will you give to the
child of night? A match,
a torch, an eye blind? May 13/11.
Ants swarm the corpse and
the priest’s wayward children
reward the monsters feasting. May 13/11.
And the child falls into the pool
of shadows and is lost til rescued
by the absent thoughts of the lion. May 13/11.
QASWYALE
And the boy was brought to me and strange he
seemed and cast weird shadows upon the walls.
But he was the last they had found and so I
raised him as my own and used my azure chitinous
hands to rear the boy, even as he slid from shape
to shape, as his kind so often did, and naming
him Qaswyale instructed him in all the things I knew.
My thousand eyes regarded him and wings I
used to teach him how to grow wings of his own,
and from tower and hall and cavern he learned
of the wars we waged, and through my thousand
obsidian eyes he saw his people murder and destroy,
and understood why he was so raised by me.
When he is old enough and ready enough I will
send him upon his own people to destroy them as
so many have been destroyed. But before this he
must know I am as a father to him, and he a son to
me. When he is sent amongst them I must go with
him. We came as one to stop the end of all things
and I would be a coward if I did not go with him. May 13/11.
XZYARIL
She was Xzyaril, and she was endowed of wings,
insect like and shimmering, and with her claws
she had already killed a man. So I shot and pierced
her skin, her skin the colour of steel, and when she
died I buried her, and she was the last of her kind.
And I, now being the last of my kind wondered
who had won the final war? May 13/11.
CORALALIA
She is Coralalia, what else can I say?
To call her beautiful would deny the words
I speak for no words can capture her beauty
enough. To call her wise, but how
can words be forged or engraved with
sufficient force to call her wise?
So all I say is simply this; she is Coralalia. May 13/11.
THE FATE OF PRESENT MEADOWS, ESQ
Empires come and empire go.
This is what you must know.
Empires rise and empires fall.
Empires do not rule all.
The words were etched upon a stele
we found in the desert and through
some mockery the translation rhymed
perfectly, creating the sing-song verse
I just relayed.
And what are we to do with such a
find? Of course we can bring it home
and show off the grandeur of a dead
world and a dead time
but underneath the poem, or prophecy,
I happened to glimpse my own name
staring back at me.
I think I’ll let this find be
lost and my name besides. May 13/11.
AMARJARGAL
And in the grasses Amarjargal is walking
and never knowing who follows her the
girl but stops and then is often talking
to the wind, the tall grasses, even the far sea
and the hoary head of the beast, the razor
claws, the shadowed eyes, all this she does
not see, but onward goes, onward for
she has no other reason, onward she goes
with her robes of fire-tinged crimson, her
hair of shadows and her eyes of gold,
ancient eyes that have seen all and where
all must lead, even into the jaws of old
beasts who will be devoured by the winds and
tides long after Amarjargal has left the dying land. May 13/11.
THE FIRE CLOWN
And one world was covered over in great seas
and the isles were isles all of the blest and the
people there were lovely and pure and none
imagined any woe of any kind.
And the other was a world all of fire and sand
and desert and the people there knew great
sufferings of every kind and in their torment
build cities upon the air and traveled from
one world to the other, to escape the flames.
And the Fire Clown who ruled neither world
thought to himself and in his mad genius cast
all those of paradise to fire and all those of fire
to paradise. And what then
happened? Why the fires suddenly cooled
and the oceans suddenly boiled and all that
the wicked touched died and all that the good
touched came to life and suddenly the deserts
became vast oceans and the oceans became
vast deserts. And whatever deities ruled were
displeased but the Fire Clown explained it was
no fault of his if the ships of fate were turned
in directions other than they supposed.
But being stubborn the god of righteousness
stayed in hell and the god of wickedness in heaven
and that is why no one listens to them anymore.
As for the Fire Clown he journeyed to Zuragulas,
the place where shadows are born, and told all
he met there of his jest and mockery of fire and
water, god, demon, woman and man. And all were
amused at the jest and he reigned among the shadows
a good long time, til time itself had ended and was gone. May 13/11.
ZARALALIA
And Zaralalia wrote the poem Immajinaria,
the poem of how one’s imagination once
it had taken hold could wield all things, even
life itself, against its wishes to do whatever
the imagination once commanded.
But being unreal herself Zaralalia was made
both slave and high priestess of her idea,
for it became her blood, her essence, and
from the shadows of unreality she forced my
hand to write what now is written here. May 13/11.
HAIKU
Who has taken the time
from my life? Whoever
it is give it back. May 13/11.
Betray not the sound
of your own heart beating
by silencing it. May 13/11.
And if the demon were to
possess me would I act any
worse than I have now? May 13/11.
Shades of light and thunder
mingle in the dark, as the
thief strikes. May 13/11.
Lost in the forest the wolf
howls for prey to come to it,
yet none ever does. May 13/11.
Lost in thought the artist
notices not the paint brush
ruining the portrait. May 13/11.
And the well gave water til
the farmer drew up his own
son’s bones. May 13/11.
Shadows dance upon the blade
the butcher uses upon himself. May 13/11.
Give all to the fire and the fire
demands still more, always more,
til you are spent, and finally gone. May 13/11.
And the sky weeps tears for the
wicked man to plant his garden by. May 13/11.
The deer never fears the archer’s
arrow in its quiver, nor the archer
blind to himself. May 13/11.
Blind to his own skills the
warrior challenges even the
mountains to battle. May 13/11.
Climbing upon the cliff face
the crow forgets she has wings
nor yet how to use them. May 13/11.
Into the stairwells of each other’s
skulls the dreams we have discuss
the meagerness of themselves. May 13/11.
Because of us the dreams are
meager things to cast nets of
hope by, slender hopes they be. May 13/11.
Who will face the shadow
of the lion? Who will then
face the lion itself? May 13/11.
Bring to us the breath of
God that we may mock His
lack of existence. May 13/11.
And the tower falls upon the
man who built it, all three feet
upon the prideful man. May 13/11.
And the law is read that who
so ever reads the law must die.
And so the law is never read. May 13/11.
A crimson leaf breaks and the
twig cries that she is robbed of
the chance to kill the leaf herself. May 13/11.
And the road goes in either
direction but still a man can
only take one. May 13/11.
Why does the raven sing when
none care to hear her? Why does
the poet write words left unsaid? May 13/11.
Crookedly the wings are left
and broken the eagle is mocked
by the sparrows about him. May 13/11.
And soon enough the pride is
left of having cheated even death
til Death returns the favour. May 13/11.
Soon, all too soon the seasons
give way to themselves, unmindful
that they ever were. May 13/11.
ZALURAGULAS
By the city gates of Zaluragulas,
stone gates and stone walls, the
man lay. He was covered in rags
the colour of dirt and waiting,
his legs broken, he sat and watched
the sand sweep the world asunder
and all signs of human habitation
all away. And the wind came to
the city gates but could not enter
because the beggar said nothing
could enter past the prayer mat where
he lay. And the sand came up and it
too tried to enter but could not,
and leaving the city felt ashamed
that such a meager thing as a
broken man could end the ambitions
which the sand had made. May 13/11.
FAITH OF OUR FATHERS
Each person interprets their own
heaven, their own hell, and no
two visions are ever really alike.
There is no faith of our fathers
to rely on but only our own.
We are who we are, and that is
faith enough to begin life by. May 13/11.
WE PICK OURSELVES UP
We pick ourselves up to put us
back down again. We collect
all those memories and feelings
and together they form the echo
of who we are but never really
who we are. From moment to
the passing of a moment we are
not a single person but instead
a community. We are a legion
of one who is never truly one. May 13/11.
RIDDLES ON DIVINITY
And who shall be punished for all they’ve
done, and how shall they be punished?
Is eternity enough, is pain enough?
Hell is not just if even eternity in hell
is not enough punishment against the
crimes that we have done and have been
done against us all. May 13/11.
IF WE EVER COME THIS WAY AGAIN
If we ever come this way again we will
not meet ourselves but meet instead the
people we have meant ourselves to be.
Be careful whom you find. They may not
love you anymore, or you may not recognize them. May 13/11.
I WOULD LOVE
I would love as the grass loves the rain
or as the raven loves the night, but failing
this I would love as you love.
And if you do not love? Then
I shall simply find the better teacher amid
the grass or in the sheltered expanse of night. May 13/11.
TANKA
What has become
of the world we live
in? I have seen
the children fooled into
thinking that I love them. May 13/11.
Has the night
come to shelter us?
No? Have my eyes
failed then?
And who again are you? May 13/11.
THE WOLF HOWLS
The wolf howls against me
I fear. And the sun rises against
me, and the tide. All things hate
me. I am destroyed that they
exist, I am ruined that any thing
exists I cannot control nor make
do the wishes of my heart.
And though I command all mankind
to obey all I hear is laughter
scattered amid the rains I did not
wish to fall upon my burning skin. May 13/11.
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