I.

I.

I am.

I am your Past.

I am your Present.

I shall be your Future.

I am sweet smell of slicked floor

Detritus burning me strong

Undulating breath fleeing

The conquest of sinew

Summon me O Lord of Dark

Pour blood in my cup

Amidst pentagrammic flames

Beyond the Sidrat tree

Charm thy circle O Lord of Light

I, King of Rot, Lord of Flies

Lucifer who stirs sick harmony

My tendrils greedy suckling the roots

Impertinent rebel of the Faith

Nourisher of Beauty

Worshipper of Satan and God

Cast your vinegar and crucifixes

Strike my horde with your arrows

Name my mystery of your names

Abu Dasim, friend of Baphomet

Angra-Mainyu and Mahis-asur

Thief of the Tree of Knowledge

I give the fruit to the Weak

By the Will of a Furious Wise God

Let Life tire of its hopeless energy

Fall tired into the subterranean world

Pluck the lyre-string and pour the wine

Consummate the virgin Jesus’s desire

Slumbering in the infinite Dust

Drawing Order from Disorder

Pull the rope from under me

Draw up the waters, breaching the Moon

Her reflection blessing the ritual

The sorcerer crying in terrified realization

The extinguished candles

The laughing of the rushing breeze

The wind that caresses the innocent

As it builds into the irate storm

I stand at the eye, and in every flung clod

I am omnipotent, by Law of the Almighty

I am the codebook of ethics burning

I am the men in uniforms warming their hands

I am the ashes in the tempest

I reign over the Earth, pulling the strings

A referee with whistle to moistened lips

My war-dance strikes wild-eyed terror

Denial of the Reality approaching

I am not Evil

I am not Good

I am neither subservient nor overbearing

I am neither Human nor Nonhuman

I am Human’s Mother

I am Human’s canvas

I am Human’s Inevitable

I am his Curse

I am his Blessing

I am Hell’s Regent

I am Heaven’s Slave.

***

I am the Gale in Noah's way

I am the Altar for Isaac's stead.

I am the laugh of Judas Iscariot

I am the frown of Janus' heads.

I dwell in all that's bastardised, infertile

I ride the spores of an invasive species.

I nurse infestation. Plague and pus;

I irrigate the sibylline valley of darkness.

Beware ye torchbearer and thine mountain of lies!

Beware ye bearded shephard!

Beware ye who spurns and turns my words!

A wraith wreathed in wrath awaits! 

I shall feed on the hallowed jest called life.

My concubine— a eunuch— my ear

Full of man's greed and woman's rage

Fills me with the content of humanity.

Reflection from a soiled plash

Doth look fairer than it's state.

I, the Behemoth, the Juggernaut,

Shall bring judgement strong.

I shall stage the divine trial.

I shall play Judge, Jury and Jailor

And also the coveted Hangman.

When rot, vermin and vultures becomes of ye

When the Hurricanes come bearing thine names

When the Ocean seeks refuge into the plates

The Heavens will fear to touch the horizon

And ye shall witness infernal flames

And ye shall know to learn my name

The King of Rot. The Lord of flies.

Regent of Hell. Destroyer of worlds.

***

Learn my name.

I am what grows in rotting wood.

I am what seeps into cortical cells of the roots

I am death

I am decay

I am fury

flattened into semicircles

sung into corals

I am a hood

a pixie's parasol

lost in paths through which no humans walk by anymore

the plunderers now leave the forest untouched

why, i do not know

slowly, i creep back

to claim my lands as my own

i regrow fairy rings

call the (queer) witches back

to dance around the flames and mix potions under the night sky

while i grow back

undeterred