The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel
Page 65
Exhausted Kentaur gasped to catch his slippery bride, 1010
then suddenly with a wide sweep of his greedy paws
pounced on her greasy back as with a wildcat’s claws
and dragged her to an upright phallus hewn from stone
that in a far-off darkened corner sweetly glowed.
The bride no longer laughed but moved her hands with awe 1015
and, murmuring softly, laved the sacred stone with fat,
stooped low and worshiped, took her bridegroom by the hand
and led him to the sacred oak’s ancestral heads.
The king placed in his grandsire’s skull a hutch of wheat,
and then the bride stretched out her arms with joy and cried: 1020
“Grandfather, wake, come to your vine-fields once again,
they have grown wild with weeds, they need your lustful blade!
Grandfather, wake, strap on your manly weapons now,
rise from the earth and in my entrails knit your flesh,
harvest my youth and tear my womb, appear once more 1025
as a male child and in your cradle laugh and play!
Here is the man, grandfather, who’ll burst my lock for you!”
She spoke, then with her heavy lips licked up the wheat
from her ancestor’s snow-white skull and chewed it slowly.
The suffering man beheld the rites with silent joy; 1030
man’s sluggish wheel moved slowly in his secret brain—
he climbs the soil a babe, then in old age slumps down,
then once more, as the earth’s dark jaws grind fine, he leaps
from the dark womb and issues, weeping, to blazing light.
The mystic wheel whirled in his mind with flashing sparks, 1035
all generations in his mind rose, sank, and fell,
then once more swarmed within him, seethed and hatched their eggs.
The pace of life now seemed to him to move so slow
that it could never match the throbs in his wild breast.
As the spread-eagle soars on high to spy the ground, 1040
thus the great archer blinked his eyes and scanned the courts;
the night reeked like a Negress in a heavy sweat,
the erotic chase had ended, and the groom now bore
the bride slung down his back, a votive beast new-slain.
Like night-black gleaming leopards, the dark dancers pounced 1045
on the aroused friends who in lust threw off their weapons;
then the black songsters with snake-flickering eyes crept near
the white girls of the troop, grabbed them in greedy arms,
then screeching like wild birds, thrust through the undergrowth.
Unmoving in night’s silence, grim Odysseus heard 1050
his women laugh and his young stalwarts roar like bulls,
but kept his untouched body free for other tasks.
As the blacks slowly crawled and snatched the cast-off weapons,
and snuffed the torches out until the stars hung low,
he saw the fat king rise with stealth and make a sign. 1055
A thunderbolt abruptly crashed in the slayer’s brain
to see the two-faced jackal tricks of his black host;
he leapt at once into the yard, lashed to his face
the fearful and brain-splattered mask of his dread god,
then moved with ponderous steps about the stricken king 1060
who gaped in silent fear until his whole flesh quaked
and his teeth chattered, for a new god crushed his heart;
he gasped and tried to cry out, but his jaws hung loose
and his throat gurgled like an overturned wine-gourd.
The archer seized his conch and blew a long hard blast; 1065
his friends who lay on Negroid breasts in a deep daze
heard the dread blast that signaled of approaching peril
and sluggishly tried to rise from the flesh-woven nets,
but black arms twined like serpents, loins still seethed with lust,
and the drugged lovers sank once more in dark embrace, 1070
enwrapped once more in the thick coil of glistening thighs,
and all lay quivering in the erotic noose of arms.
There white girls, in the deep warm stench of Negro flesh,
smothered like honeybees drowned in a rich black honey.
Then the clear-headed leader blew once more in rage 1075
to assemble all the faithful round him in closed ranks,
for now the cunning snares of Death were spreading tight.
First to rush out was Granite, buckling on his arms
—women are cooling water to drink and cast away—
and, snorting, took his place beside his furious chief. 1080
The blast shook all the trees and dragged sleep by the hair,
eyes once more opened in black arms, and nostrils quivered:
alas, embracements were most sweet, and rough the road,
for in lust’s sticky kisses all still swooned and trembled.
Groggy with lust, broad splayfoot stumbled out from shade 1085
with swollen lips and golden wedding mantle gleaming,
his beard and shaggy armpits dripping with thick musk,
for, like a bee, he’d thrust in a black rose, and now
buzzed out, his savage bellies, wings, and furry feet
thick-splattered with gold pollen from the plundered flower. 1090
Behind him floundered the scuffed piper on wobbly knees; 1091
by God, he too had lingered long amid black blooms,
playing with apples, sniffing at a few last grapes,
and when the first conch blew, he deadened his deaf ears,
climbed a sweet apple tree and wedged among the boughs. 1095
“Oho, don’t shout so, archer! I can’t hear a thing!”
But when he couldn’t bear his captain’s second blast,
he crashed down from the leaves, bruised here and there, and came
with his blade hung between his thighs like a whipped dog.
“Cursed be the female tribe that trips us with its snares! 1100
They stick to us like leeches, then sting us like crampfish
and bind us in their lime-twigs, lads, until there’s no escaping!”
The black sky had turned milky, stars flicked here and there,
and when the black chief and his slaves saw the armed troop,
both men and women, swarming swiftly from the grove, 1105
they huddled close in trembling fear and speechless watched
the ruthless strangers plunder all their stores and flocks.
“Fellows,” fat glutton shouted, ravaging through the barns,
“come on, there’s plenty of booty here! I’ll set up house!
Don’t feel bad, Father-in-law, I’ll only take my dowry!” 1110
Odysseus stood erect and gleamed in the dawn’s light:
“This savage nightwork, too, has ended well, my lads;
hunger and rage and war, fat arms, good food and drink:
behold, earth’s wheel has come full round and drags us with it.
May God thus whirl our fate about like the swift stars! 1115
Now onward! The earth spreads with further joys and griefs.
May all who wish to stay behind wake to a sweet dawn,
we winnow as we plod and cast all chaff to the winds.”
Tall horse-legged Granite pushed on first with all his braves,
and broad-rumped Kentaur stalked in stately pomp behind, 1120
his gold-canary shoulders glistening like the sun,
but his bride tore her hair and clung to his broad hips:
“Don’t go, my dashing horseman! Don’t leave me, my sweet mate!”
The guileless groom looked backward and his pure heart trembled
for his mind gaped with a babe’s awe in his thick head: 1125
until there’s no ungluing them in hands or feet?”
He scratched his head and sighed, “How can a head like mine,
and that a blockhead, solve the world’s obscure enigmas?”
Turning, he beckoned to his bride, but when he spied 1130
his cliff-guide’s pointed cap, he hastily dropped his hand
and played the innocent child, then swiftly took the road.
“He’ll give me a tongue-lashing now, and he’d be right,
for I did overdo it and took my own sweet time!”
Thus splayfoot mumbled as he sped to escape his master. 1135
Odysseus ran and lashed God’s mask to his dark chest
with sturdy thongs and felt it gnaw deep at his heart
the way a child will bite and suck his mother’s breasts,
and his god’s bloodshot eyes, his nostrils, ears, and jaws
opened and closed on his wild chest and gaped with hunger. 1140
Day broke, the sun roared in the sky, a bursting sphere
that beat down and rebounded from earth’s drum-taut hide.
All heads once more were scorched by flame till their heads blazed,
God’s face changed and grew savage once again; the world,
flaming and desolate now, spread like sand-blasted wastes. 1145
Like a good shepherd, Kentaur counted with his eyes
how many had been winnowed out in the ruthless trek,
how many had turned back and died in scorching sands,
how many had anchored in a woman’s harboring breasts,
and God, how many girls had stayed, in black arms locked. 1150
He counted over and over again, and his spine shook,
for he felt God above them winnowing hearts and souls
with a fine sieve, picking and choosing ruthlessly,
till glutton’s mind could bear no more, and his thick lips,
bride-bitten, quarreled profoundly now with God’s caprice: 1155
“God, you’ve sure muffed your job! Your world’s a stinking crime!
If I were God, I wouldn’t change myself one bit,
I’d cut up wild on earth once more, I’d chase the girls,
I’d take a ship, I’d sail, I’d once more choose the archer
to make all my decisions, take on the world’s headaches, 1160
while I sprawled on my back and quaffed life like a lord!
I’d fling my heart wide open to the four wild winds
like a paternal home and welcome good and evil both.
I’d play no favorites, all are my babes, I like them all,
and if at times they tire and fall on earth to rest, 1165
I fetch them into light again to gaze on the sun.
But this god that Odysseus lugs on his burnt back
strikes ruthlessly at earth and kills without regret.
You’re two of a kind! To think that such as you now rule the world!”
Their heads grew ripe in the hot sun like hanging fruit; 1170
as shadows lengthened and night fell, they lit campfires,
turned on their shoulders slowly, stretched on sand, and slept,
a bevy of birds which sleep the hunter strings together.
The people slept, but by the fire their chiefs kept vigil,
and the archer, sitting in their midst, feeding the blaze, 1175
rejoiced to see that flames, the more they eat the more
they flick their greedy tongues as though to eat still more:
“I bow in reverence to your hunger, my great brothers,”
he murmured, then turned to his fellow-travelers gently,
for all that day his bursting heart had seethed and boiled, 1180
he’d kept his lips and brains unlaughing, locked up tight,
for in his heart joy had expanded and pain increased.
He watched his sleeping troop, rejoiced, and wished them well:
“While the world sleeps, leaders must always keep the watch
and speak of good and evil done, then take full measure 1185
and cut the future’s cloth true to the mind’s desire,
for the strong spirit holds the world like wax and molds it.
This seemed to me like a good day, my faithful friends,
behind us the green town, before us seas of sand,
and we, between them, join in one God’s double face. 1190
I see it clearly now, the desert’s my true land;
I thrust more deeply in myself the more I pierce her.
Heat, hunger, wild beasts, trees that hang with skulls for fruit—
these are mosaics with which man’s heart and the earth are built.
Thrust these few words deep in your minds and lash them tight: 1195
the more our journey widens and new roads unwind,
the more God widens and unwinds on this vast earth.
It’s we who feed him, friends; all that we see, he eats,
all that we hear or touch, all that thrusts through our minds,
he takes for his adornment and his strutting wings. 1200
Soon as we see these savage thorn trees on the sands
he too sprouts thorns and stings us with ferocious rage,
and when we hear the wild beasts prowl, he too grows wild,
growls savagely and scares poor man out of his wits.
In our own land he wears white linen cloth with grace, 1205
but here in Africa he grows ferocious, wears bronze rings
in his wide ears and nostrils, tall plumes on his head,
sweats like a Negro, and like a Negress stinks with musk.
God is the monstrous shadow of death-grappling man.”
But as the archer spoke and fed the flames with boughs 1210
and his eyes sailed upon them as on crimson seas,
he burst out suddenly in a startling, cackling laugh:
“Now by the sword I wear, I sometimes lose my wits;
it’s true that he may need us, that we two are one,
it may be he’s our master and on desert sands 1215
heaps high at times a tray of bison, water, bread,
and not because he loves us—drive that from your thoughts—
but to keep living the flesh on which he rides through life!”
Granite arose and cast huge handfuls of dry thorns
upon the dying flames till they leapt up like lions; 1220
his smothered heart could bear no more, and he spoke out:
“On the day I left my craggy native land, there blew
deep in my heart full fifty winds and fierce typhoons.
Passions ate at my heart, nor could I free them then,
but now at length all things distill within me clearly; 1225
now I know why and for what cause I’d give my life.
As we pierce through the desert sands, two great commands
are etched deep in my mind, the voice of our dread God.”
“What great commands?” his leader cried, and his heart throbbed.
His friend, as though confessing, said in a low voice: 1230
“This is the first which from on high spoke to my heart:
‘May he be cursed for whom both sorrow or joy suffice,
may he be cursed who smothers not in mankind’s virtues;
open your arms, my brothers, that the world may grow!’
Then softly, softly, when great hunger stabbed our guts, 1235
the second great command pierced my illumined mind:
‘Only great hunger feeds my god, and great thirst slakes him.’”
But then the piper shrilled out with his murky brain: 1238
“As I trudged on I shouted in my slanting mind:
‘Where are you going, fool? Will you never stop? Behold, 1240
I see roads heaped with the bleached bones of crazy travelers!
Though I
seek deathless water, alas, I sink to Hades!’”
In some of his friends’ minds the lone man’s words struck home:
“You’re off the track, my piper, for you think you speed
to find deep wells of deathless water to slake your thirst, 1245
but Granite here has hunted down and caught my secret:
to climb and hunger, Orpheus: this is my God’s feast,
to thirst in the desert, Orpheus: these are my God’s wells.” 1248
As Granite gazed on the low flames, his bright eyes dimmed
as though he felt ashamed now of that day’s confession, 1250
and he rose swiftly, grabbed and flung some thorny brush
in the low fire until it blazed with sputtering tongues
and cast reflected crimson stripes on all their faces.
Then Granite tried with stealth to shift the dangerous talk:
“I’ve loved and never had enough of two live things: 1255
to watch flames lick their tongues, and animals at play.”
But the soul-snatcher laughed and caught his comrade’s arm:
“One day, my friend, I’ll carve on every skull and stone,
and on all tree trunks, the commands of our dread god.
I shall engrave them on all flesh with flaming iron 1260
that I might march with open eyes straight on toward Death.”
A river-bearded ancient archon shook his head,
with deep sword-slashes on his bones, with crumbling teeth:
“You gab too much of God and pass him through too fine
a sieve until there’s nothing left of him to eat. 1265
I hear but one cry only, more than enough for me:
‘Never ask why, but follow a soul greater than yours!’”
All then fell silent, and the archer’s backbone shook
as though a thousand souls had hung about his neck
while he drove on and chose salvation’s road alone, 1270
salvation’s and destruction’s, for the two were one,
and both pursued one goal, a two-tongued hungry flame.
Midnight: the fire crackled swiftly, danced and ate,
and the archer’s brains, too, crackled like dry burning thorns;
the owl’s mournful voice dripped on the moonlit sands 1275
and the flame-flickering leader touched slim Granite’s knees:
“Don’t speak, my brother, for a majestic city looms
on my heart’s mountain summits and my mind’s plateaus.
Flames leap and sway in my dark head and lick their tongues,
they build tall towers and castle gates and battlements, 1280
they build long rows of homes where mothers laugh and work,