NOAH

The breasts of birds trill out their melodies; I am filled with all kinds of growing things; I am full up of life, head to toe I am full up of blooming life.

But what’s this tiger in the brush? What are these great black birds pecking at my heart? I am empty of everything sane and sober: I have been made an anarchy of living things. The earthworms in my flesh are in a riot; the tiny fish swimming through my brain are in a frenzy; the tiny elephants storming my veins have gone crazy; there are rabid wolves in my heart and gut. I am made of life, cursed with a cup overflowing with life; I wander the tangled undergrowth of my being; I am trapped in the wild lands of my soul.

These are your hands, cold to the touch, thin, pale; this is your face, blotchy with madness, hot; these are your eyes, dilated, flaming, blinded by the mysteries; and this is your frame, a bit of flesh covering over the wilderness entire, a thin encasement of jinn and animals.

What will keep you from your own wild dreams? O you dream dreams constantly, you live in a dream, dreams have stormed breastworks no army could conquer, and yours are like living fire, destructive, mean, uncaring. O you shall have to be calm while I tell you a story.

There was once a young man and two young women. The young man was sleeping with one of the young women. The other young woman was very attracted to the first young woman. Then a demon came, and said that when all three were children, they were given high doses of something that would turn them into monkeys later on. Soon, the young woman who wasn’t sleeping with the young man ran away into the wilderness, saying, "Do not harm the golden plates and the priceless silverware!" Then the young man had a dream that he was in a hotel named The Invertedbrate. When he awoke, he found such a hotel, and stayed there. But the hotel was ruled by the demon, and now the young man was in the very body of the demon. The young woman he was sleeping with followed him there, and was killed by the demon. Finally, the young man shot himself in the face with a shotgun, and died.

And what of this growing senselessness? What of this powerful master, who has been overthrown, whose kingdom has been put in chaos, whose land is anarchy to which order can never be restored? This master is the storyteller.

The staff has been snapped. The crown has been shattered. Your legs break like twigs. Your arms are boneless, fleshy tentacles. Where did you get such power as sits in your eyes? O your hair is the beautiful, thick nest of birds. O your skin is like earth, full of worms and inner life. But what’s this strong-toothed heart, with a feverish beat like drums of war? Does it not leap from your chest in a great flash of blood, and bite the innocent with a poisonous bite? Does it not have stingers all about its flesh, and is it not painted in warning red and yellow and black?

O now you shall have to warn them of the wolves that prowl your veins in search of things to eat, prey to kill, people to maim.

But look!—your teeth are rotting. And look!—your heart sinks back, wrinkled, weary. The power in your blood has fled. You are made of tame yellow grass through and through. Your great crucible has passed, and now you have no fire in your guts, no spark in your stomach, no rage for a mission in your heart. You are weary constantly, constantly sleeping, constantly dreaming. This is your weary rest; this is your mournful time to look and feel sorrow; these are your years of dry desert and drought.

Where did you get those black teeth?—that white tongue?—those eyes that look out but do not see? Can you hold your intestines in with your weak flesh, or are you so weary that your bowels will burst from your body of their own accord? Are you about to break and fall down and whither, for the crazy inspiration that has long since left your body? Are you dry inside, and will no amount of water cure your dryness?

O you’ve left me, strange monsters, beasts of the deep and of the sky, queer animals, those myriad horns and hooves and eyes! Now I have no dangerous things lurking in my guts; I am empty: there are only a few starving spiders in my stomach: the life has passed out of me and gone.

And now you’ve grown old; and now you read the poems of your youth and say, "What could I have meant by that?" And now you get a strange temptation every time you shave and every time you look out at a precipice. These are your hands, warm, thin; this is your face, dry, wrinkled; these are your eyes, dull, with no fire in them; and this is your frame, a bit of flesh covering a desert that expands like the blue of the sky. Now your tiger has stopped stalking you; now those great black birds have ceased their pecking; your ears have grown dull and you cannot hear the trilling of the birds; your eyes have a film over them, and shall never sparkle again. And so you wait; and so you’re bitter and your flesh is perpetually cold; and so you try to spark fire with emaciated fingers; and so you try to grow crops in an arid land. This is your paradise: sing, for the days when you were filled up with every species of living thing are over: you are calm, you are at peace: and you shall only be happier once you are dead. Sleep, wild savior. A cord still runs from the crown of your head to the world outside; once it is cut, you shall be sweetly in darkness forever.