The Outsider (Part VIII)

This is a continuation. To start from the beginning, click here.

V. DUSTY DEATH

Within the trembling deep of the great waters
Within the pregnant expanse of the clouds
Within the shaking of scorched earth
The prisoners and the pilgrims
Torches and staves and labyrinths
Of rocks of summer crowning random ridges
I who destroy am about to die
We who about to die walk to our own funerals
We are little men

Only ashes nothing else up here
Dead ashes and nothing and the tall grass
The grasses dying in among the rocks
Stretching along the mountain’s endless broken back
In the end this ash we did banish
Lying in the tall grass he did not vanish
Face in the sky and hands in the shadows
In the bitter end lying in the grass
The ridge ahead not slowly rising sharply falling
Only here you see the vanishing and kneeling and crawling
When you give up victory you can sleep
Fearless dreams under a million stars
When you give up defeat you can sleep
Except for the shrieking hoarse voices night and day
Everyone leave the room except for you
In the end

And there is nothing
Lots of nothing
But dead ashes
Only ashes
The dust
The cinders in your lungs
The end brushes the ash from his face
Their noontime explosion
Nobody in nobody out
But nothing is like the dead ashes
After the sun is put out between wet fingers
Whup whup whup whup whup whup whup
And yet there are no ashes

What is the first thing you will do in Olympus?
When I go, I am going to piss on it
Those longbeards in their white togas
They say three out of every four men are gods
Walking right by the dead birds in the snow, spiteful
I do not know what is earth and what is heaven
—But when I get there I will piss on it.

What noises up here make one forget
Buzz of stony silence
When is that darkness monster coming back
When is he coming, caked with sulphur
Shining like sleek oily metal
In the hay where lovers tossed
Hot wax and riding crops and ribbons of choking silk
Surprise visit
Medina Masif Jibal
Glockington Stone Creek
Strange

For the last installment, click here.