the clouds were closing in

and the mountains turned to huge turtles, shaking off there dust and earth, and i sat on the breathing sand with my hood supported over my head only by my right index finger. my thoughts ran like news tickers on the inside of my eyeballs faster than i could ever think them.

on the outside, it was clear: doom. dark, swirling abyss in the sky, coming for us all: the wicked the righteous the bastard and the beloved.

we were all going down and i was the only one who could see it. strangely, this stirred in my no desire to warn, to call out. it just made me smile to know i knew. i knew all this absurdity was going down the cosmic toilet from whence it came and i would finally, after all this, rest.

i could at last shed this outlandish slew of a body and close my eyes to a world that i never felt part of nor wanted to be part of. at last, after being thrust into this existence without my own consent, i'd be cast out of it just the same, only this time i was ready.

again the mountains that had revealed themselves as turtles inhaled dust and exhaled their movements, their rest coming to its end. the seem to look toward the crashing sea and i try not to smile, but i cannot stop. there is no such thing as not contracting now. the universe and me are both squeezing and birthing and wound up with even potential energy to send concourse after concourse of actions and equal and opposing reactions into infinity.

i am solid and my whole body is waiting to explode in the darkness that is getting closer every moment, and cleansing the Great Mother piece by piece, atom by god-damned atom as it rages and blows.

the heavens won't be stayed this time, this time there is no one to awaken and save us. there is no vessel to build. this time, its for real and for keeps and it should have happened a long time ago.

the only thing i can't believe that i am seeing right now is actual reality. the sand, in the material world, says "I love Rex." this can't be real because i know Rex is Oedipus' last name and a classical euphemism for man's best friend and though i never made that connection before, it doesn't seem like a surprise. but, lo, before me, in nature's way of matter in motion and according to the law's of man's physics, there it is, and i know it is not a product of my projection.

its fitting that these are the last words i will ever read and i'm reading them in the sand. the ground moves beneath me as the turtles escape into the sea and i this time i laugh. i read in the hidden scroll that when the turtles finally move, the end is nigh.

i laugh the same reason we all do. we laugh because we feel superior to someone else. we laugh because we have taken the fear grimace of our primate fore-bearers and turned its submission into dominance and laugh at god, man, and the universe instead of crying. these are our sins and we deserve whatever pain this storm has yet to bestow upon us.

i looked down and i'm bleeding as the wind picks up and i see her dancing, far away from me, first to be consumed. she is full of color, hard outlines, and is all saturday-morning animation as she prances in complete relief to the darkening world around her. i love her but i cannot reach her! i start to go to her, but in my way stands a river that i cannot find a way to cross. i know it is crossable, as she crossed its currents, but i can't find the pattern, nor the way to her side.

i have nothing to do but hold my hood up with my finger and watch her in the same awe as when i first cast eyes upon her looking up at me as i placed my arm around to keep her warm.

tears join the blood on my face because of all of the wretched, degenerate hypocrites polluting the face of this land and sea and sky for centuries, she is the Innocent One and darkness is closing in on her because of them. i spit blood and curse the Creator for His asymmetry. she is dancing and playing with the Dog Named Loki. i cry and pace the shores of this damned river, this prophet-less red sea. while panic wells up in my heart and throat and temples and i'm ready to fly to pieces like some kind of ancient tectonic plate who has been forced to wait for centuries to swallow mankind whole and take everything they've built and pull it back to earth from whence it came.

i hear the first sound i've heard all day and it is a clap of destruction. behind me is the First Man i've ever wanted to tear into pieces with my own hands, fingernails, and teeth. he has a hatchet and he's taking it vulgarly to the driftwood. let is rest for god's sakes! let it lie, here at the end of its journey, peaceful in its final estate! after all the living, dying, breathing, and fucking drifting--let it lie! Has not man defiled enough graves for his own grotesque pleasures? man cannot find peace because he butchers it so!

my only consolation is that i know he will burn it and the smoke will go into the blackness and he will empower and embitter its judgment and get what he and all like him deserve and i don't know why, but these hands curl and long to be the vehicle of that vengeance. he comes down from his ziggurat with shoulders high and woodsman arrogance, the stench of those who make their way in the world killing that which sustains life and beauty--the first art. i can smell him all the way over here. after desecrating the last remnants of what once made this world a garden place, he will warm his hands on their ashing bodies and tell some joke about his penis to his visitors. they will laugh. i will kill them all for this if the abyss delays her hands. i haven't a choice.

with a sudden, involuntary, grimacing inhale of oxygen i am unstuck: oh god, his sins have tainted me!

i have spent all these precious minutes and seconds on his sins and they have caused me to commit my own!

the billowing surge is turning into itself and multiplying its mass each time, all the while surrounding my love. now color is gone in my eyes save for her, and i have sacrificed my last minutes of laying my gaze upon her visage to the thorn in my flesh, the ever-distraction that i am at last witnessing the desolation of. fitting that these be my last scenes, for they are the two forces that have torn my attention and wrested my mind all my days--made me long for my rest. my love, my muse, my nymph, gaily dancing naively as the darkness envelopes all creation and the darkness itself that only i can see.

her and i are both Prophets, though only one of us knows it.

she spotted me at the edge of the water and is coming this way the tears start again because i have been redeemed of my weakness and given more moments of her face. i look again over my shoulder to the heathen with the hatchet and wish she were saved of his debauchery. i should kill him now just for taking her light with his deeds.

she's here and i still cannot find a way to the other side of the Many Waters. she is smiling and i am crying and she tells me its a stream, not a river and as she says these words, they become true and all at once the way across is illuminated before my eyes and i fall upon her neck and embrace her while the storm screams and wastes the earth and i am filled with its unholy power. place my hands on her back and feel her spine and knowledge fills me and at once i understand my last mission on this earth is that i must forever keep her back to this tempest and she, my love, must remain the last living purity on the earth. she must keep her back to this Darkness that she may remain the salt of the earth--she must preserve it.

we cross the stream upon small islands of land and i wince as intelligence penetrates me and i am caught in the Creator's snare, for if she is spared, and casts not her eyes upon Fate, remaining pure and whole, then the end cannot come, for the world has not grown fully ripe in iniquity to be plucked from its twisted branches and my rest, my harlot or my beloved--i know not which--shall not be known!

as with our First Parents, so with our Prophets! the Creator is the vivisector and trickster and yet we love Him for the same reasons a prisoner loves her captor. i surmise that His ways are not of the poet, but of the pragmatist--the only way to bind us to Him is to bind us, for otherwise we will stray and fall upon forbidden paths, never to be seen or toyed with again.

Curse you, you Eternal Scoundrel! May the arrows of Babel have pierced you from your Laboratory and i have been there to raise your severed head to the Sun and free mankind from this absurd plaything you have deemed existence!

My only peace is in your jealously! jealous that you may someday have peers, you pronounce an end to your torment and allow us rest from your Court! If ye can hear me, O Mother, O daughters of men, come and take this all away! sweep us all from before thy face, O Earth! take us home to the warm stillness from whence we came! Canst thou heal what Father's done? embrace us once more i pray thee!

she snaps me back to reality with a touch to my face. the dried blood and tears have now become my war-paint, my proof I was there. she tries to wipe it off, tells me its not needed. i smile and she tells me she can give me The Sign. she tells me she learned the Grand Key Name at the sea and knows The True Order of Dance.

i know i must reveal in order for her to reveal, for that is the nature of things.

i stop to draw a cross in the sand and tell her that truth is found in the middle, where two lines of seeming opposing reason have intercourse and paradox reveals they are both true, false, one and another, all opposing and all encompassing, and the pressure is unbearable.

"is this your cross, then?"

i say nothing because my teeth are clenched so hard they hurt.

i look at her, and now everything but her is shades of black and she is vibrantly painted and her features more simple and child-like with every passing second. her eyes larger and her clothes larger on her. she is transforming as she draws near and takes my right hand into a grasp that i have never felt before that climaxes with our index fingers on each other's wrists, my pulse exploding between the beats of hers. she is facing the East and i the West, and my fear is that she will turn and behold the Abomination to the South. she is locked in on my eyes and all fear bleeds out of every pore in my body.

she kisses my throbbing temple and says, "oh my little goaty-goat man. always so serious."

I say "what is The Name?"

"Wimbleston Erasumus Doggleson the Third."

she begins The Dance, but i stop her. i cannot risk her facing the South. we disengage hands and i move her to the North. The Dog Named Loki follows us, still loyal after his True Nature unmasked.

inside i tear from top to bottom, one part dying to grab her cheeks and force her spine to the Sun and face to the abyss and enter my world and partake with me the hidden knowledge that was from before the foundations of the world, the other part leaping to bask in her meadows of life and love and forever let go of my Calling and Mantle.

inside i exclaim: Woe is me, for I am undone! because i am a man of unclean lips and i dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips! My righteousness is filth in the face of her smile and i am encompassed about on the right hand and the left, and i am banished to sit in the ashes of my own infidelity! i shall always remain filthy still!

with every step we take toward the North, my mind circles this one truth that has never let me sleep:

i must choose

shall i take her into my arms as some Incan hero-priest, as the Savior to His mother (only in reverse)? shall i prevent her from the fate of lot's wife and save this world of the destiny it has sown in the very fabric of the universe? shall i forever be alone in my visions and the weight of the world's sins crush me like a millstone about my neck? shall i be denied of my twin delight--to be understood and to be laid to rest?

shall i turn her about and watch my love die as i have died, but for the first time be connected in the holy embrace as death washes over us? the death i want, the understanding i crave and justice in all its ugly faces breathe its fiery wrath upon a dried and desolate world! the place where man's heart has failed him since the Dawn and has used his gifts to craft spears and swords and guns and laid creation to waste!

I am the Faun and I hold the Nymph who allowed herself to be tamed and know not whether i am the key or the mechanism in this dyad, but this much is clear. each of my organs, muscles and bones all call out for action--some are screaming for it.

i know i must ascend some mount for answers, but the turtles have moved into the sea, taking their wisdom to the waters and i am left alone. valleys encompass me on to the north, east, and south--and the sea to the west.

i must erect a tower! I shall place my love at the pinnacle and thereby she shall be my oracle and illuminate my eyes and teach me of my cross that it may be a circle once more!

i keep my hand to her back and lead her past the woodsman. i will bathe my hands in his blood-- this is certain. if i must save this world, he will not be in it.

a stranger approaches us, looking intently behind us to the abyss and i command my body to be as natural as possible and try to look as if this drama were just something in my head and smile as they mention something to us about The Dog Named Loki.

i know nothing but that i must choose a choice and that is clear when i look at my nymph. destroying her Life, not matter what the cost to me, would make a Barbarian God lower than the one watching us now and, perhaps i have more to learn from my Light, so walk we shall, even as the clouds catch us and everything goes cold.

she shines nonetheless.