The New Death and others (4 page)

They wore a shape that had not seen

the day since days began

with leering face that showed no trace

of any race of Man.

They held me with inhuman hands

and carried me inside.

I walked in silent blackness till

I felt that I had died.

I felt that I had died and gone

to walk among the damned

forever in the secret places

underneath the sand.

Down in the dark, down in the dark

down through the rock and slime

away from light and human sight

and sanity and time.

At last they stopped and let me drop

down to the cavern floor.

I gasped for air. I felt despair

and soon I felt no more.

---

A distant music woke me up:

shrill pipes and chanted words.

The faintest beat of shuffling feet--

but were they feet I heard?

But were they feet, or hooves, or paws

or something with no name?

I watched and listened in the dark

as on and on they came.

I listened as the choir shrieked.

Drums pounded. Pipers whined.

I watched as well, and in this Hell

I wished to be struck blind.

The torches held by mummy's hands

and other hands far worse

shone forth and I, who longed for light,

now called that light a curse.

The day my eyes first opened up

I called an evil day.

I could not stand the things I saw

yet could not look away.

---

The parts of man and beast and corpse

none in its natural place

each rotted, writhing, wretched part

set in a human face.

And last of all and worst of all

and queen of all the vile

unholy things that slithered in

the dark beneath the Nile

and last of all and worst of all

the queen of the undead

foul Nitocris whose jackal fangs

were stained a bloody red.

Her skin was stretched and torn and
marked

and rough like ancient hide.

I looked into her eyeless face

and maggots squirmed inside.

I know not why I did not die

or fall or shriek in fear.

Then all at once forgotten words

seemed whispered in my ear.

---

Strange words which I had read, but not

thought worthy of my trust

seemed spoken though their author had

long since returned to dust.

He lived unloved and died unmourned

and knew no wealth or fame.

An Arab whom the world called mad.

Al-Hazred was his name.

He lived unloved and went unmourned

into eternal night

but in the dark I thought of him

and knew him to be right.

I looked upon that dreadful face

and knew the reason why

al-Hazred said, "That is not dead

which can eternal lie."

Al-Hazred said, "That is not dead

which can eternal lie.

A soul may burn and yet return

and even death may die."

---

I saw the world that he had seen

long centuries before:

an apple shining red and round

but rotten to the core.

All health was sickness. Life was death.

The sacred was profane.

The Arab whom the world called mad

I knew him to be sane.

All health was sickness. Life was death.

The greatest was the least.

My human soul gave up control

and I became a beast.

I stumbled, howling in the dark

in misery and fear

perhaps for days, perhaps for weeks

or for ten thousand years.

Perhaps for days, perhaps for weeks

beyond all and guilt or shame.

I lost all memory of the sun

forgot I had a name.

---

They found me lying in the desert

ranting without words

as senseless as a new-born lamb

gone wandering from the herd.

As senseless as a new-born lamb

but has that lamb less sense

than animals that stay at home

content behind their fence?

Who stay at home and rest content

and never wander far.

Would they insist the lamb was mad

who saw the abattoir?

They talked to me, pronounced me cured

allowed me to walk free.

They said that I had dreamed and I

pretended to agree.

Our old, well-known, familiar world

substantial as it seems

is nothing but a story-book

and nothing but a dream.

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The Face in the Hill

On a hill in the desert there is a rock
formation that, from certain angles, resembles a face. The local
tribes consider it to be alive, and to possess magical powers.
Hardly surprising, since those wretched people see omens in every
cloud and tree. By that I meant, of course, to contrast their
superstition with our rationality. But the increasing burden we are
said to be placing on Nature is the most-discussed issue of our
time, so it could be said that we too see omens in every cloud and
tree, or perhaps in the lack of them. In any case this 'face' is
believed to give true counsel to the one who approaches it in the
correct manner and at the correct time.

I found that this myth excited a strange
fascination in me. Or perhaps not so strange, given my position. I
can call upon experts in any field. Yet I am never sure whether
they are giving the best advice, or the advice they believe I want
to hear, or the advice some underling wishes me to hear. Or, at
worst, deliberately bad advice that would play into the hands of my
rivals, which is to say the opposition party, my colleagues in the
governing party, and all other parties. The reader will perhaps not
wonder that I was seduced by the dream of advice both knowledgeable
and untainted.

It would not do to approach the thing openly.
I represent the party of stability, of commerce. Perhaps, in the
minds of some, I represent stability and commerce themselves. I
have ever argued that Nature is not dying at our hands, that we
must not change our ways, that to argue otherwise is to embrace
irrationality. I would be flayed alive by the media. As if that
crows' chorus of screeching halfwits have the right to accuse
anyone else of irrationality! Yet this is forgotten when one's
enemies are the victims, and I am the enemy of many.

My life is restricted in many ways, but not
in material things. It was easy enough for me to arrange the use of
an air-car which could bring me to the hill in question. I went in
the night, both to hide myself and because the face was said to be
silent during the day ('sleeping', the desert people say).

I had imagined that it would be roughly the
size of a living face, but it was vast. The 'mouth' was wider than
I am tall. Its resemblance to a face was quite remarkable, and
confronting it alone in the night was rather unnerving. Nonetheless
I approached it, and performed the ritual that is rumored to be
necessary. The final part of this ritual was for me to lie curled
up, fetus-like, with my ear to the great 'mouth'. My position
reminded me of a baby, lifted up by its mother who wishes to kiss
it. I asked my question, and listened intently. Despite its huge
size, the thing was said to have a voice as quiet as the approach
of death. I heard nothing.

I suddenly felt very cold, very tired, and
very stupid. Then I heard a voice: my own, angrily denouncing my
own idiocy. I stood up and brushed myself off. I considered kicking
the so-called oracle, but there was still something intimidating
about it. I walked back to the air-car and prepared to fly back to
my home in the city.

As I sat in the cockpit, I realised that, in
a sense, I had received a message. The face had said nothing. And
'nothing' was the answer to my question. What danger lies in our
treatment of Nature? What value is there in turning from our
present path? What evil might unfettered commerce bring us?
Nothing, nothing, nothing. The warnings of my opponents were as the
wind of the desert, air and noise. I flew home with a renewed sense
of confidence and purpose. I am more certain now than I have ever
been that we are on the right road and, if we close our ears to
false prophets, no disaster awaits us, but only ever-growing levels
of prosperity and security. Given the courage, determination and
faith that I know we possess, we will meet the challenge of the
future, and our culture and civilization will never fade from
Mars.

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The Prince of the Howling
Forest

They left him alone on a miserable isle

that was dark as the grave and as bitter as
bile

where one end to the other seemed scarcely a
mile

with the name of the Howling Forest.

Where the wind never stopped and the wolves
never ceased

so a lifetime could pass with no second of
peace

and a soul be worn down till a man was a
beast

and ran naked and mute in the forest.

Where the seagulls that mocked him with
freedom and flight

seemed to screech of the cliffs to his left
and his right

and the eyes of the wolves as they watched
him at night

were like stars in the glowering forest.

They left him alone on a miserable isle.

Not a one had his strength. Not a one had
his guile.

If the sea feared his arm or regarded his
wiles

He would not have stayed long in the
forest.

But the cliffs would not die nor the ocean
be slain

so he stared at the sea and he roared out
his pain.

Then he slept on the rocks with a blanket of
rain

and his dreams took him out of the
forest.

Then the sun, red and bloody, cloud-hidden
no more

hung huge in the sky like a festering
sore

as, with fire and steel, bringing vengeance
and war

he returned as a king from the forest.

Every infant he flayed; every ancient he
broke

and he honored no kindred; acknowledged no
folk.

When they begged him for mercy he laughed
and he spoke

and his voice was as cold as the forest.

"When you run out of tears and your heart
turns to stone

and the fangs of the wind bite your body and
bone

and you squat in the darkness afraid and
alone

I will still have borne worse in the
forest."

On a miserable island they left him
alone.

Though he carried no crown, though he sat on
no throne

Death has crowned him at last, for in death
he is known

as the Prince of the Howling Forest.

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The Uncharted Isle

As I was sailing the Wine-Faced Sea, I passed
an island which appeared on no charts. I asked a woman who sat on
the beach where I was.

"This is the Isle of the Ones that Got Away,"
she told me. "Whenever anyone thinks of an old flame, and wonders
what that old flame is doing now, the answer is that they have
ended up here, and are living a life of bliss".

I would have made further enquiry, but she
continued.

"If I may answer your next question," she
said, "we do not think of them. Not even once".

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Compatibility

Once upon a time there was a man who only
desired to make love in the back yard, in a wading pool filled with
red wine.

He went on the internet looking for love, but
found only rejection, until someone directed him to a site
specifically for singles with wading pool/back yard/wine
fetishes.

There he met a woman who shared his desires.
They chatted online, spoke on the phone, and at last agreed to
meet.

The man was very excited. He began telling
the woman how he would slowly inflate the wading pool, and then
equally slowly fill it with bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon.

"Wait," said the woman. "Isn't Cabernet
Sauvignon a red wine?"

"Yeah. So?" said the man.

"Oh. I probably should've said. I only want
to make love in someone's back yard in a wading pool filled with
white
wine."

"Get away from me, pervert," said the
man.

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The Moon Sailed Sadly
Through the Sky

The Moon sailed sadly through the sky

on trails blazed by the Sun

remembering ancient chants of praise

but hearing not a one.

She mourned the passing of the days

when innocents would die.

A sacrifice for each new month

to keep her in the sky.

A heart cut out for each new month

and laid before her throne.

The snow lay pristine and unstained.

The Moon sailed on alone.

She heard a howl from jaws still hot

and dripping from the kill.

The wolves that ruled the lightless
woods