PETER

He feels a pinch. Bloody, enmeshed.

And the dreams keep coming O I wish I could stop dreaming dreams. It was rolling downward like a great fat egg. Eternal!

The prophet sees his knee stabbed through with a pickaxe. And here we are, like thunder-sons. But where are all your lost wishes and your great hungry longings? Still, I know your weight, your scent, the sound you make when you chew. This is a portrait of Peter. His brain is made of a thousand tiny beetle eggs.

And now your beard is trimmed, my Lord, but where did you get that lovely golden bowl? And how will you strip the staff of its snakes? Nonetheless, we are all here very thirsty for disaster.

And now is the hour in which the eyes shall be blinded, and the ears made deaf. Look! The living are made dead, the healthy made lame, the dancer made a cripple. I knew it would turn out this way.

And now your worms writhe like great puppets. And now your eyes are like scales. But what will you do with the rivers once your army has crossed into that strange and terrifying Land of All Thieves? Can your horses break teeth? Can your hair blind the angels to your image?

And now you come to me, full of questions about your father. Still, I understand that this is all making you dizzy: here, let me lay a towel across your forehead and tell you a story.

But where is this city you speak of, this place of towers and arches and roadways and metal? What are your names, you three? I know you were delirious and you didn’t really mean it. Go on: go ahead: there is nothing left to do until the light of day hits the sky.

It was a great seeing thing, it was a great knowing thing, it was a beast of the deep waters, it was something better left to suffocate. Now the leviathan has taken a feather and made it into a knife: with that knife it has stormed the palace and assassinated the king: it arose out of water and to water it shall return.

Now you understand me well, you little little man: I am the one who shall cry out into the winds: Stop, for God’s sake stop!

And he said that it was enough, but where did you get such lovely grapes this time of year? No, it cannot be mended: I’m afraid we shall have to build it anew. Why are these ants gathering together, marching out, gathering together, and marching out again? O this is all so very confusing why must you confuse me so. I only wanted to take you by the ears and show you the world; now you’ve broken off your collar and you’ve run amok through the flowerbed. What is to be done O what is to be done?

And now you know where you got that nice bump on your forehead from. What did you say was the name of that great seeing eye, that thinking machine, that knowing machine? I am he: and now I have no excuse: you may as well grind up my bones and feed me to the cows.

How do you open this fleshy part, this part right here? O the cartilage is tough in this area. We shall stuff you with filth; we shall fill you with rot.

And now you’ve told me your name; now you’ve told me your mission; you are the seeing thing, the knowing thing, the broken man and the hermit shut up in the inner rooms: now your time is up, your cup is dry, your rope stands ready at the gallows.

And this is how it ends: with a proper way of digesting the material, meditative, garlanded. These are your roses of Spain; these are your jewels of Russia; this is your staff: now go on and stab your heart with the teeth of the dead. I know you have a portion of meat hidden in your belly: here, let me break bread with your heart and your liver: we shall drink wine till our mouths are full of sick tastes: we shall break our hands upon the mirrors and open up our bowels with glass.

This is a portrait of Peter: he was nailed to the cross upside-down: and now I shall tell you a secret: this is the secret life of the mind: this is the secret in the hermit’s small hovel, guarded only by obscurity:

The meat has long since rotted, he died with his belly full, the worms digested what he could not, the eggs hatched out of his gut.