encomium of the gods

Don’t tell me this world of soil and sand is real; don’t tell me that, when I live with the haunt of fantasy and the fantastical, of a love of soul-to-soul, of colours that are three spokes short of a good wheel.  I cannot bear it.  I am not up to it.  Tonight I am clad in armour of red and black and adorned with two thorns for each rose, and I will not come down, I will not see my wings rent from my back so easily – I will be cursed to float forever between memory and tomorrow, and I will wrestle against the winds no more.

I’m saying no, and I’m giving up, and I’ll struggle no more against the shackles of the gods, because I’ve found another beautiful soul, and she flickers like a candle in the darkness.

And I needed that flicker.

I am damned, and I am happy and full of love, and I’m ready to drown in the rain.  The pantheon has more use still for me, and I shall kneel and serve.

And this moment will pass, because us poets are lewd and abusive to our experiences, we exploit and exhibit them – we speak of them, and fall out of our favour with the gods.  And so be it, while I promise to serve, you lot know that I cannot obey.  But another memory has been born; I have lived another day without compromise, with unflinching constitution, without cowardice, with a quick and steady hand – ready to catch the reflection of myself as I riot and ricochet off the diamond in the rough I have stumbled across, stumbled into and through, stumbled together with.

This is art, brushstroke by brushstroke, and a name and a voice and a soul makes me smile.  I am starting to believe that this *is* art.  It’s the deep wound in the heart that ushers in the gods and the madness and the impossible desires and the unquenchable fire and the heartache of the reality of it all and the fortitude granted by the endurance of the moment.  With each breath we get weaker, and with each breath, strong for having survived the plunge into another: another idea, another beauty, another understanding, another smile and laugh and gentle purr, or, simply – another.

So let these fucking storms scream at me then, let them howl and shriek!  Let the high winds come and the cold and the hail and pain.  I can endure it and all the horrors within, the eerie shadows of silhouette rain across my prison’s walls, the unbalancing song of death’s whistle in the wind; because none of it can wash you out of my mind, and I carry your laugh with me into sleep.

I tribute the gods for this moment, and thank them doubly for letting me keep it for an instant (and thus, forever) in the battlefield and library of my mind.  I said I was ready, and now, I will serve.

Love,

Driz

~ by drizitche on June 29, 2009.