The Verdicts

Memory is survival, but it is also assassination. The abandonments. I say that I’m a writer only because writing is the condition of my breakdown.

Katabasis, I watched the ends rise, yes
the god of redemptive genesis escaped us
wounded sun, sunrise incised in crimson sinews
from dust to dust: you are nothing to me
and so nothing continues
who am I the starving dark?
who am I in the beckoning void?
who am I that thou say thou art?
these were the verdicts of tranquillity
that I was a vanishing thing
oh prophet orphaned in the dark, 
who am I that thou say thou art? 
The fragility!
This Genesis killed me 
It was the darkness I craved
driven to extinction by carnage dawn
oblivion—the achievement of exile
the fragility like the maelstrom it was named me
impaled every midnight
I was darkness drowning in delight
craving devastation desire lived like lightning in my limbs
oblivion—the achievement of desire!
I was gone with the rivening winds
drunk on survival, I hid behind a labyrinth of fictions
creation is obliteration
Like Piranesi in the moonlight
the world was flooding
and I chose to hide
oblivion—the achievement of creation
I witnessed my dissolution in dreaming dusk 
Desire burned in expectation of me 
Madonna the archivist 
With the maelstrom midnights 
paradise, that shadow of Earth 
flooded the world withdraws in war
the rhapsody of desire! I died for this!
vanitas, I was a vanishing
far from the madding crowd
there was lightning in the wild mountains where I lived
season of waste, season of waste
there was alchemy in the abyss
to the darkness I say: I am
Herr Madonna, daughter of knives
Herr Madonna, the darkness I survived
and I called it light
the lapse! of the ages!