The Song the Body Dreamed in the Spirit's Mad Behest
The Imagination, unable to grasp the reality of pure Spirit, conceives of their union under the modality of her own nature. Longing to respond totally to the divine summons, and convinced in faith that the Redemption has rendered this possible, she struggles to cast off all the inhibitions of original sin, and evokes the deepest resources of her sensuality, in order to achieve in shamelessness the wholeness of being an age of shame has rendered incomplete.
“I am black but beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem. Look not upon me because I am black, because the Sun has looked upon me.” — THE SONG OF SONGS
Call Him the Lover and call me the Bride.
Lapsing upon the couch of His repose
I heard the elemental waters rise,
Divide, and close.
Lapsing upon the couch of His repose
I heard the elemental waters rise,
Divide, and close.
I heard Him tremble and I turned my head.
Behold, the pitiless fondness in His eyes;
Dark, the rapacious terror of the heart
In orgy cries.
Behold, the pitiless fondness in His eyes;
Dark, the rapacious terror of the heart
In orgy cries.
His eyes upon me wanton into life
What has slept long and never known the surge;
Bequeath an excess spilt of the blood’s delight,
And the heart’s purge.
What has slept long and never known the surge;
Bequeath an excess spilt of the blood’s delight,
And the heart’s purge.
His lips have garnished fruits out of my breast
That maddens Him to forage on my throat,
Moan against my dread the finite pang
Of the soul’s gloat.
That maddens Him to forage on my throat,
Moan against my dread the finite pang
Of the soul’s gloat.
He is the Spirit but I am the Flesh,
Out of my body must He be reborn.
Soul from the sundered soul, Creation’s gout
In the world’s bourn.
Out of my body must He be reborn.
Soul from the sundered soul, Creation’s gout
In the world’s bourn.
Mounted between the thermals of my thighs
Hawklike He hovers, surging at the sun,
And feathers me a frenzy ringed around
That deep drunk tongue.
Hawklike He hovers, surging at the sun,
And feathers me a frenzy ringed around
That deep drunk tongue.
The Seal is broken and the Blood is gushed.
He does not check but boldens in His pace.
The fierce mouth has beaked out both my eyes,
And signed my face.
He does not check but boldens in His pace.
The fierce mouth has beaked out both my eyes,
And signed my face.
His tidal strength within me shores and brunts,
The ooze of oil, the slaver of the bitch, The bull’s gore, the stallion’s famished gnash,
And the snake’s itch.
The ooze of oil, the slaver of the bitch, The bull’s gore, the stallion’s famished gnash,
And the snake’s itch.
Grit of great rivers boasting to the sea,
Geysers in spume, islands that leveled lie,
One snow peak agonized against the bleak
Inviolate sky.
Geysers in spume, islands that leveled lie,
One snow peak agonized against the bleak
Inviolate sky.
Folding Him in the chaos of my loins
I pierce through armies tossed upon my breast,
Envelop in love’s tidal dredge of faith
His huge unrest.
I pierce through armies tossed upon my breast,
Envelop in love’s tidal dredge of faith
His huge unrest.
But drifting into depth that what might cease
May be prolonged until a night is lost,
We starve the splendor lapsing in the loins,
Curb its great cost.
May be prolonged until a night is lost,
We starve the splendor lapsing in the loins,
Curb its great cost.
Mouthless we grope for meaning in that void
That melds between us from our listening blood,
While passion throbs the chopped cacophony
Of our strange good.
That melds between us from our listening blood,
While passion throbs the chopped cacophony
Of our strange good.
Proving what instinct sobs of total quest
When shapeless thunder stretches into life,
And the Spirit, bleeding, rears to overreach
The buttock’s strife.
When shapeless thunder stretches into life,
And the Spirit, bleeding, rears to overreach
The buttock’s strife.
That will be how we lose what we have gained,
The incremental rapture at the core,
Spleened of the belly’s thick placental wrath
And the seed’s roar.
The incremental rapture at the core,
Spleened of the belly’s thick placental wrath
And the seed’s roar.
Born and reborn we will be groped, be clenched
On ecstasies that shudder toward crude birth,
When Hisgreat Godhead peels its stripping strength
In my red earth.
On ecstasies that shudder toward crude birth,
When Hisgreat Godhead peels its stripping strength
In my red earth.