Here I am, then, posed and poised, playful-seeming yet impossibly stretched: a long-eared, soft-furred creature, something like Bugs Bunny or a thing from Beatrix Potter. Except: stronger, tougher; long, and lithe; a flashing scythe of flesh, shanks strung with sinew and muscle a million times more powerful than your own.
I am the size of a man, the weight of a car. I am a bunched fist, released; the spring of a bomb that is set to explode. I am molten metal, made animal; a heft of mineral, hewn with a force that could kill. A human hand may have sculpted me, seemingly, but in truth, I was already there. An inert force. A shape in the earth. A being bound by stone, awaiting my release.
You look on me as an ornament - a pleasing, peculiar folly. Signifier of nothing except your own wild fancy. To you, I am a toy, a plaything or puzzle. Around me are windows, and from them hang faces - so many softboiled eyes set in overfed flesh. Daily, I see them, with glances which fall, on me then the sky; on me then a lamppost; on me, then at a passing woman’s legs. Your attention is not much more than a fly’s. No wonder you do not see me. Some of you try to figure me out, but all of you are incapable.
Once, I was Lord Buddha, who sought freedom in my form. Once, I was an Egyptian god, and goddess – I shifted between genders as you do from channel to channel. I was the moon’s sleek messenger: I travelled there and back again, mixing an elixir of immortality with mortar and with pestle.
You look on me as an ornament - a pleasing, peculiar folly. Signifier of nothing except your own wild fancy. To you, I am a toy, a plaything or puzzle. Around me are windows, and from them hang faces - so many softboiled eyes set in overfed flesh. Daily, I see them, with glances which fall, on me then the sky; on me then a lamppost; on me, then at a passing woman’s legs. Your attention is not much more than a fly’s. No wonder you do not see me. Some of you try to figure me out, but all of you are incapable.
Once, I was Lord Buddha, who sought freedom in my form. Once, I was an Egyptian god, and goddess – I shifted between genders as you do from channel to channel. I was the moon’s sleek messenger: I travelled there and back again, mixing an elixir of immortality with mortar and with pestle.
I held a torch for Holda, the Wild Hunt’s leader. The goddess Eostra took my shape at times. And in Rome, ah, Rome. There, they understood me. Find me carved on the bodies of tombs, munching figs and grapes, gleefully cavorting, while cadavers rot inside.
For I, I am immortal. Without beginning; without end. And yet you choose to regard me as - a cute thing. A critter. A pet, or maybe pest. You rabbit on incessantly, with your imbecile definitions, your tiny, tawdry attempts to pin me down.
For I, I am immortal. Without beginning; without end. And yet you choose to regard me as - a cute thing. A critter. A pet, or maybe pest. You rabbit on incessantly, with your imbecile definitions, your tiny, tawdry attempts to pin me down.
Fools. I spin on the sword of a crescent moon, with the bell of the smith-god, Gofannon, below. It was He who made Me, not some feeble human hand. An animal cannot make a god. Lowly creatures, I’m not here because of you. You cannot hope to understand this. You should not dare to try.
No comments:
Post a Comment