Phoenix.

[Guest guest]

There have been busy hands about me while I slept.

Busy fingertips of fire, busy angel kisses

opening up that which has no opening in the flesh.

I am a man flayed out and tied down

while beautiful nymphs make love

like a fountain over my soul.

 

Where do we travel in the night?

>From what bacchanalian party have I returned from,

still wet from the adoration of desiring gods?

There is winter in the world, but there is no winter in me.

Each night I am pulled by the reins of love

into a springtime, a dancing garden of light

to be undressed and reshaped by passionate fairies.

 

They open each cell of this form and pour liquid and

molten, the content of lovers kisses into my substance.

I am molded and melded, and each pre-dawn awakening, a

new mold is cracked apart, and this strange creature I have

become emerges as the imago of God. A questing god-being

that alights upon the globe of this world and spreads its

heavens across a new mind-scape.

 

I am become the child of the hammer and the anvil of love.

New forged, and full hardy in my being.

My legs are giant redwoods. My arms, the wings of the

great swan of beauty that lives within me. My countenance

opened by a terrible grace that pieces my flesh and eyes.

No one in the blind world looks directly at me. Yet in their

souls I rise up as the burning phoenix of their hopes to be,

just this image of love that I have become.

 

I can enter any city, and stroll any leafy wayside as the

eternal spy of every heart. I see you all, hiding in your coats

of delusion, of fearful limitations, your hoard of miserly

secrets, tucked between your legs shamefully. Love has

made me a compassionate scythe that I must wield to

harvest these words. May they burn like fire in you. May

they scorch you with the fierce regard of a hunting eagle.

May they rattle your handmade cages, and release you to

who you are. My they destroy your self deceits, your constant

complaints, and despairing loneliness.

 

Yet, these are only words. Words I throw at you like Eros

seeking a target. First though you must be willing to be

Loves prey. To be hunted by that love eagle that beats

terribly in your heart of hearts. It is held down in darkness,

for you believe in darkness.

 

You have created this inner night that you would walk

within, robed and painted in sack cloth and ash, and the

woman of your soul, you would keep as a drudge in

whatever hovel you hold her captive in. First unlock the

lock that has become you. First break open and away from

this fear that keeps you rooted in doubt. Demand of love the

gifts of love. Be forged in the fire. Woo whatever beauty sets

you afire with divine longing, and die to that divine face.

You must be hopelessly resigned to this death, and walk

towards that image as a dead person longing for the graves

of this ancient graveyard to swallow you whole.

Only then can you be resurrected in loves recreation. Only

then. Only then.

 

 

love

 

eric

 

 

 

Copyright 2002. Eric Ashford.