Terra Incognita
“Luminous and impatient at seventeen, the greatest hardship she had endured was California winter. She took even minor inconveniences as evidence that the entire universe was mysteriously arrayed against her. The bounty of the world seemed so inexhaustible as to be forever out of reach.” In this novel, à la Pynchon and Fitch, I will
We were beggars chasing Paradise in the nights
Salvation from a dark age by the candle of daybreak
The sun slumbers and the stars are fire
Gather me and consume me oh God
Centuries of dust trapped in dreams
Gather me and consume me oh wild divinity
I had a dream I escaped the wilderness inside of me
In this siege of winds desire I am your mistress
A plague of days in this darkness again
Creature of flesh pulverized to dust
In the shadow of golems your rival creation rises
The sun sinks to the sea and the dark snake of Eden witnesses me
Desire this small death this ecstasy child-bearing eternity
Daughter of dust this is your day of judgment
In the murmuring winds I lived with wounded songbirds
I was a dreaming creature until even these dreams failed me
Sybil of the dark rains, I am burning with this ancient fire again
Like your ancestor stars I had a wandering melancholy
From the breathing Earth gather me into the frenzied eddies of dream
I was wandering these divine wilds in exile, in exile
These moonless midnights, I am drowning in the winds again
These are your works of creation this is your tomb
I saw angels walking from salvation for desire
Sacrifice of the silent universe, when you witness me I am revived again
Sibyl of the night winds, these are the tears of creation
Beautiful creatures wandering in the darkness before dawn
The glamoured golem rises again in the red evenings
You had the sublime majesty of budding spring
Sibyl of the night tides, days of defiance, yes I held my hands to flames —
Summers of solitudes now the stars are fire
Gather me and consume me oh wild divinity
Enslaved by dreams, I am your gypsy of fallen majesty
I made monuments to the screaming storms inside of me
In the stillness of the battlefield I am crossing twilights
The sun shrinks before the stars of hydra
and I am hunting desires in the nighttides again
The fevers that follow me, this agony! this agony!
Like the shadows of the blue mountains you had sublime majesty
Terra incognita, this is your kingdom of fire
I saw angels walking out of Elysium for desire
Starlights in Babylon where the moon is a beacon tower
I dreamed of spring’s shrine, I dreamed of blossoming like rowan before summertime
The light must have its burning victories
This is your life in the winds
This is your kingdom—silos of light
The Desolation of the Winds is rising!
Beautiful manacled creature, face the dark and awaken in your fractured land
Terra incognita shrouded in the storms of God I forgot the lessons of desolation
There are thunderheads in the Ozarks, the world is smoke and ochre
Child of the winds, this is your kingdom—silos of light
Hold requiem for your disappearing dreams
The snake of Paradise called my name and I am this fire again
To dream and die as a beautiful creature in the darkness before dawn
In the galleries of twilight desire is stitched into my spine
