Here it is: a
Filthy carrion-mouthed creature.
I've found it. Bent and clutching
With cruel claws - it reaches
For one thing; one pure thing
It must never touch. A
Slimy skeletal monster.
I had rather die than give
Ground to it whatsoever - and yet
It only gains power as it weakens.
More of a ghoul, more of a goblin,
More fitting for some nightmare. It is
Cut from the white marble,
Cut from the loving stone.
It is a desire that even without
Action is still putrid sin alone.
Now I know what
The haunted sailor sees
(Who has through sea-soaked ears
Perceived a siren's song, even long
Ago.) I know what the great mountains
Know that have been split and
Carved and made to weep away
Beneath rivers. The creature is
Deep in me, I have found it -
I myself have seen the artist at work:
Carving it with my own hands,
Carving it of my own terrible heart.
Abomination though it is
It cannot be denied. Reaching for
One pure thing, I throw all else
Aside, clutching and grasping and stretching,
Why does the thought set me retching?
I have known what great mountains know:
That I am less than skin and bone,
That I am carved of sin alone.
No apology can be made, no
Forgiveness shown,
For I am a perfect hideous beast of
Marble precision - descending as a gargoyle -
Descending as an emissary of
Implacable, howling, roaring, screaming, hungry Love.
What foul God made man?
What terrible Adam has eaten of this fruit?
The juices of knowledge run down my throat.
The flavors of ripping
And slicing color my tongue. Man
Was meant to clutch and grasp -
To rasp from bleeding throats,
"One thing, that one pure thing!"
But hope is a fool's schematic,
And the true workman's tools are
A scalpel, a skillet, possession -
No, attainment - of that thing, that thing!
It drives me to become
Immortal terror wrapped in flight,
Immoral desire in a night blanket.
How many ribs can you count?
(You who I have chosen to show.)
I am growing thinner.
Not much longer until I have it,
(I'm sorry, so sorry.)
That thing, that perfect thing,
(But I must, I must, I must-)
Whose name is written in
Fire on my monstrous bones.
Comprehension dawns on your cheeks:
Rosy, like the sun behind a cloud.
Yes, yes, now you see: I will be your cloud!
Let me engulf you! Do not be afraid,
I am a fragment of Love.
I am lungs without your breath, empty
Veins without your death . I am eternity in
Silence - but together! Let us be so! Let me
Engulf you. (We will be the perfect creature.)
Please, do not run. Stay and let
Us be bleeding, mangled memories together -
Let us rot together, let us fall
Into each other with the help of worms.
Do not run, you mustn't, you are half of
The pure thing. Oh my near-perfect love,
I must, I must.