Aye,
Here I stand,
chained
to the mountain
suspended
between promontory, ocean and sky
forever,
named
Prometheus
by legend
and named
me
by circumstance
awaiting
the eagle
that tears my liver out of my breast
and knowing that the meaning of liver is kabd
and that to him who renders the image in the Greek tongue
it means
just that,
exactly so
and that to you
who read this in my English words
it means
little
Yet, the eagle appears and tears out my kabd
day after day
and day after day
and forever so on
in all eternity
Amin
In between I smoke
coarse cigars
Tobacco like raw weed
tears into my tongue
and burns it
until it draws blood
and prevents me from eating
for days in a row
In my sleep
I grind my teeth
And when morning breaks, so does my jaw
but like that kabd, that ipar,
it grows back into place
every morning
and when the sun stands high
and noon burns
the eagle descends
and rips open
my chest
And you shake your head, gentlemen
and you, ladies of the heart
and you, donkey drivers
and slave auction accountants and minor
shareholders
and dear liberal democrats befriending
them all
and chemistry students
who tweet
"How sad to see so raw a suffering!
But what can you do, ey?"
It's the clogs in the valves
'long as the system does deliver...
Where's there to go? What's there to look for?
Nothing. Aye. Nothing
indeed.
I, greater than man
and smaller
than dust
and indefinable to you,
Guardian of the Sacred Fire and profaner
of its flame
took compassion
and was condemned
and chained to the mountain
by the keepers of the Faith
who ascribed their actions
to God
And here I stand wishing your questions would not be
rhetorical
for rhetorical questions court rhetorical answers
but my liver courts
the eagle
and it grows again every day
and day after day
and forever so on
in all eternity
Amin
Aye. They say: Who are you, Prometheus
to touch
the Fire?
(And Prometheus is not even
your name.)
And so say you.
Aye. The name
I have given up
but the fire
I'll cling to
in life and in death
and its flame must warm those who are cold
and empty and all-out
and now and then starving like me
and burn those
who abuse it, monopolise it and keep it
away from me and you
Brother Eagle, come, take your fill,
for if you don't, many others will
and that will do nothing to alleviate pain
Willingly I have done it, and willingly I'd do it again
Maybe they'll burn books, maybe they'll burn you and me
but my kabd, it will grow again and I'll journey the flames willingly
And as long as this world exists there will be
someone in it who thinks like me
and knows and suffers like me
in profane sanctity
for I, too, know God and God, too, knows me
Of deepest sight I speak to eyes which no screen veils entirely
Of deepest truth I speak to ears in which no echo holds quite true
That, too, I know, and so do you
Yet, in my partness I am whole
and in my limits lies my all
for I am stark and bare and I see that which is stark and bare
and well may you say: Every wholeness seems fractured and there are limits everywhere
But I say: each testifies to each and the shadow testifies to the light
It's the wall that projects it and here I stand chained to the mountain and the eagle takes flight
And it's that liver, that kabd, that ipar, that asks you:
Who's dead here? Me? Oh, speak up, do!
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