It
full profits me, a long-dead king,
By this long-dead fire, among these monstrous crags,
Shackled to a mummified queen I would escape,
And from the children that rape and kill and
Eat the hearts, and know not that I am their
Father; yea, it full profits that from these
I would escape.
I cannot cease from
seeking; I will drink
Death to the full. Lethe cannot quench me,
I will drink till it is dry, until that which
Is dead spits forth life and I breathe again.
All the times I have hated, or greatly yet endured,
With those who were my enemies sworn, and those
Who were my lovers true,
Through moon-drenched
nights of ghosts and shadows,
Where grasses like wires grew to catch my horses,
Along shores where ravens flew to vex the wine-dark sea,
I will see these times again and change them to my will.
Though I am become no man, an emptiness of flesh and
Bone, a pretense of the life that was,
Forever will I strive
with gnawing appetite, for much
Have I known and learned of the idolatries of man,
And the blasphemies of the heart,
And the shining cities like pearls from the earth that
Tear at the fabric of the mind; and of foolish councils
And governments that perish overnight.
I, when living, was
drunk on adoration and delight,
My name the highest praised among the angels of the night.
Far from the dusty streets of Antioch, I cannot forget
What I have seen, my visions shaped me and shape me still
Far past the hour of my doom. The mistakes I made,
I will not make again.
Far too much have
I seen and learnt to rest quietly in
The grave. Far too much have I seen and learnt for death
To make me her slave. I will not slumber quietly, decaying
In the dirt. My soul longs for a whetstone and the hour of
My rebirth.
Soon, soon, I feel
it coming soon,
Death upon death cannot
hold me, my mind is set
And therefore divine, what the gods could not conquer,
Death shall not hold.
The power rises within me of things both old and new,
The power to shape a universe and build the body of
A man bold and cruel.
In three moon's time
I will walk again and breathe.
Three moon's time and the world will be my slave.
Out of the echoing silence my footfalls will ring.
Out of the silence, the thing that has never been will
Suddenly come to be. Death knows her conqueror and
This wild spirit she cannot contain.
Death knows her conqueror and No Man is his name.
I follow the shooting
star beyond the bounds of thought,
Beyond the realms of life and death, beyond all that is
Or ever was. It is my own spirit that I breathe in and
I breathe out, and to myself I bequeath the throne of
Power and of might. To rule by whim peoples savage and rude,
Equal or unequal is all the same to me,
They will be bent to my good, no matter what the price.
My works are my own,
and always will they be.
I owe the gods no obligation, for none did they pay me,
But left me to drown in hell's black sea.
I work my works, and now the gods will suffer,
For yonder lies the ship that will bear me to
The lands of life from whence I was thrust too soon.
The ship of death
waits to carry me, the ship wrenched
From her claws, the ship of skeleton spars and transparent
Beams, manned by the ghost mariners of the ages.
The lightning and the whirlpool, the typhoon as it rages,
Will not forbear me; death holds no terrors for one who
Has known the grave.
And what was death
to me? I overcame and grow young again
And sail beyond the moonset, for still I have mighty works
To do. The light begins to grow, the sky begins to break.
The dead sailors cry, for never did they think that they
Themselves could escape.
"We are seeking
life my friends, and soon it will be ours;
And this time, we will be the rulers and masters of our fate.
We sail beyond the moonset, out of the endless death behind,
Past her blasted throne, out of the welkin of dark heavens,
To the light that grows beyond."
Shadows could not
hold me, all that was taken I shall take
Back; that and more besides. I am become my own Achilles
And my own Zeus; I am invincible and mightier than before.
Out of my unrepentant temper, I move hell and heaven to do
The thing undoable, to live and walk the earth again.
Time and fate have
made me adamant,
The ship of ghosts is bringing me closer,
I strive and seek and find and am not denied.
The earth, the very heavens, are now my playthings
And I bend them to my will.
For never was I truly
conquered, and I am unconquered still.
Never was I conquered, and never still.
copyright
c)2001 Terry Weide
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