but the light-archer clapped his hands before his eyes
and heard hoarse yells and laughter, arms that rose and fell,
the crunch of bones, the dreadful bellow of a beast 1065
as warm thick drops of blood splattered his trembling arms.
Because he could not bear this secret of the world
he felt ashamed and raised his eyes that throbbed with fright:
like screaming vultures that swoop down and rip a corpse,
and one soars off and holds the feet tight in its claws, 1070
and one sits heavily with the guts hung round its neck,
and the most bold grips in its claws the bloody head,
thus did the sons rush at the wake to eat their father.
The hour was sweet, and scented earth spread her night-flowers,
the waters swayed in thirsty nostrils of wild beasts 1075
and the moon lay stretched on the field like a dead boy;
young men now wandered in far towns, dew on their hair,
the scent of the belovèd still steamed on their chests,
and new-wed mothers woke at midnight, vexed with cares,
and smiled to hear their sons at play within their cradles. 1080
The ten heirs screamed and rolled their bloodshot eyes with joy
then slowly licked their bloody lips with their coarse tongues
and once more broke in a wild dance till their brains swirled,
their head-plumes leapt and thrashed, flames tossed within their eyes
until their father leapt in their bowels with ax in hand. 1085
Each son became his fearful father, danced and sang:
“Brothers, let’s drown our memories now and wash our hands;
ah, we’ve not killed our father, for he lives and reigns
complete within the sated entrails of each son!”
“Oho, my neck’s grown thick and strong, my hair’s turned white, 1090
I’ve no beginning or end, I’ve lived a thousand years!”
“My eyes have grown to monstrous size, the world’s grown small,
whatever I see is mine, I’ve grabbed the Old Chief’s eyes!”
“I’ve grabbed his ears, all speaking beasts or birds are mine!”
“I’ve grabbed his heavy phallus, all fat maids are mine!” 1095
“I’ve grabbed the Old Chief’s daring heart, I fear no man!”
“I’m the Old Chief himself, look at his arms, his hair!
Heap in the center of our court our flocks, our pelts,
our weapons, children, maids, then raise your axes high
and let the strongest son who kills the rest be chief! 1100
My eyes brim blood, my father roars in my guts, ‘Strike!’ ”
Odysseus rose then to his knees with goggling eyes,
and as the brothers roared and fought, the maidens seized
the youths and with shrill cries tried to prevent the slaughter.
One maid tore at her hair and in delirium screamed: 1105
“The Old Chief comes as vampire! See, his frothing ghost
has driven his sons insane and laps their spouting blood!
Old crone, O white-haired witch, drive it away with magic spells!”
An ancient sorceress, with a yellow spirit’s mask
hung on her sagging dugs, rushed out and clapped her hands, 1110
stamped slowly on the ground as though she drove a stake,
then swirled into a magic dance until the youths
stood still with fright, their axes raised above their heads.
Beating her hands, the ancient hag hissed like a turtle:
“Scat, evil spirit, scat! I blow to right and left! 1115
If you’re a small flame, fade! If you’re a small dog, die!
If you’re a thought hid in a head, flow into feet
and there turn to delirious dance and drown in earth!
Dance, my lads, dance! Stamp the Old Chief deep down in stones!
Brave youths, throw down your weapons, wake from the grim curse, 1120
I hold in both my hands my dark and quivering thighs,
I hold my dugs from which two streams of black milk flow,
and in my loins and womb I hear a voice command.
Brave youths, a great god in me looms and cries, ‘Don’t kill!’ ”
The father-slaying sons were dazed by this new law 1125
that issued from the frothing entrails of the witch,
but a roused youth, strong as a bull, mocked at the hag:
“Who then will snatch his women? Deep in my bowels I hear
the Old Chief hop in rage, alive, and shout, ‘My son,
raise your ax high and be the last remaining male!’ ” 1130
The women’s bosoms heaved, the young men growled, and as
the yellow mask of fear leapt on the old hag’s breast,
the second great new law seethed from her frothing mouth:
“Brothers, a mighty god within me shouts, ‘Don’t touch
your father’s women who matured in his deep caves!’ 1135
Your moldy ancient father roars with ax in hand
in each one of his women’s loins and spies with wrath,
and as your seeds pour in each womb, he kills them all!
Quick, brothers, scatter all your mothers, sisters, maids
to other courtyards in far distant and strange lands 1140
and barter them for many foreign and sweet wives.
I rise on tiptoe and spy out far distant towns,
I see maids fresh as crystal water or wheat bread,
others are sunburnt, their deep bowels seethe with eggs,
and all are yours to barter, that your seed may sprout. 1145
I swear by our Mother Moon, there is no greater joy
than to delight in watching how a strange girl eats;
her dancing is most novel, strange her smell and smile,
and strange the way she gives her kiss or takes it back.”
The ancient sorceress clapped her hands and stamped on earth 1150
until her soul, as shrilling as a cricket’s rasp,
allured the savage sons to a great blaze of lust.
Behold, the tough-skinned brain with all its greasy fat
flew off to foreign places, passed through foreign towns
and mutely crouched on a tall peak to spy the wondrous land. 1155
Dear God, what wells of cooling water, what sweet chat,
what heavy painted water-jugs, what female backs
that burn bronze in the sun, white, yellow, brown and black!
The women stroll in forest clearings, chirp like birds
and sway their hips till the earth sways, and youths go wild 1160
and leap like cocks with golden feathers high in air
and mount the maids, those hens that hatch within their minds,
then swell their chests with cocky pride, and crow in triumph.
Leaping in thought these distant forms, the sons lost track
of time, and their thick hands, their lips, their thighs got lost 1165
in farflung foreign lands, on fragrant foreign breasts
till they no longer yearned for their cruel father’s women.
Parrots awoke in treetops, the air shone and rang
with upright feathers like the first dream of a bride;
the early morning dew glowed on the lion’s mane, 1170
and a huge multibranching honeysuckle, drenched
with musk, twined round the strong horns of a rutting buck.
The hearts of the black sons grew calm, their minds grew sweet
until they cast their masks away, and in the first
pale beams of dawn that lit their faces, now turned mild, 1175
all understood their brotherhood, and in dim light
once more entwined their arms and broke in a swift dance:
“Farewell, for the wind blew, and a strang
e spirit swooped,
until our arms turned into masts, and far lands called.
We’ve seen maids that we liked, we’ll take for merchandise 1180
our own maids with their hawser hair and milk-pail hands,
we’ll sell our sisters and mothers with their swelling rumps!
Our hungry kisses leap like goats from crag to crag,
swoop down to foreign strands and knock on women’s doors.
Oho, my lads, we buy and sell well-seeded flesh!” 1185
The trees about them creaked till apes rushed out and stooped
to marvel at their upright brothers who at dawn
danced as their thick mustaches dripped with drops of blood.
Behind them huddled, row on row, with upright tails,
the wood-squirrels, leopards, martens, fawns and civet cats, 1190
all the embellished, tassel-tailed furs of the forest,
and further back there swooped and perched upon a dark
fir’s top the great starved archon of the corpse, the crow.
Amid the shaggy beasts, the jungle’s brilliant wings,
the groaning sons strove with delirious flesh and soul 1195
to shape a dance that they might understand the great
new laws, and their red rolling eyes were filled with future wings.
Hidden among the trees, the wings, and the wild beasts,
Odysseus shook to see that from his fingers dripped
the warm blood which had splattered him from the chief’s slaughter. 1200
His temples gaped like smashed gates of a plundered castle;
what if his inner jails had cracked and from the bars
of time the ancient savage captives had broken loose?
“Somewhere in dreams or in the slaughter’s vertigo
I hid in this dark wood, I saw these dragon-sons 1205
and with them slew our father, and with them broke in dance.
Time gapes unhinged, my mind is soiled, and I’ve turned backward!
Ah, I can’t bear them! When I rise, they’ll scatter and fade!”
He took two strides, stood upright in the bloodstained ring
and pierced the savage dancers with his ruthless eyes 1210
so that they suddenly stopped, and their feet hung mid-air.
“The Spirit!” they shrieked and stuttered with fright. Their knees gave way,
their sturdy loins crashed down before flesh-eating eyes,
and their firm flanks began to quiver like fine mist.
Then the light-archer slit them with his arrowed glance 1215
and pierced their dark brains, necks, and chests until their bold
audacious bodies rose disburdened on the mind’s
high peaks and soared through air like the autumnal clouds.
The first-born son then opened his mouth wide and strove
to voice his fear, and to crawl close to the dread Spirit, 1220
but his thick jaws slipped crookedly, he gasped and stopped,
for the earth came and went beneath his stumbling feet.
Both men and women screamed and fell flat on the stones
as in the circling trees the ape-ancestors thronged
screaming, and scratched their testicles with filthy nails. 1225
The great ascetic stood stock-still and felt his brain
swirl like a shooting star that casts red-azure flames,
and heard his Mother Earth in the deep silence scream,
and then caress his ripe head with its precious gold:
“Help me, my first-born son, pity my laden womb, 1230
it’s filled with vipers, beasts, and gods; I eat and eat
but there’s no eating them, for they spew out like springs!
The Spirit, that lustful white bull, mounts me night and day;
rise up, blow hard, my last-born hope, that all may die!”
Earth cried out for salvation to her son, the mind, 1235
and he in pity for his mother, held back his strength
till in the dawning light he saw blood-clotted beards,
blue lips that never bit a woman’s holy flesh,
and arms that longed to clasp, amid foul filth and milk,
a spadeful of lean meat, a son, and give him suck. 1240
He did not hurry as he groped real limbs and flesh,
no dream had spilled on earth and bred but fantasies,
these were not demons who had burst his chest’s bronze bars
but his own blood-kin made of phallus, womb, and brain.
A soul-complaining voice then burst from Mother Earth: 1245
“Pity them, dreadful Spirit, for these, too, are men,
but they’ve just parted from the beast, their brains are still
dull and coarse-grained, filled with mud, pebbles and thick blood.
They strive to rise on their hind feet, to conquer weight,
and when they see the earth, they seize sharp stones and try 1250
to rip my womb apart and to entrust their seed;
when they see maids, they grab them by the hair and thrust
them down to the hard ground to shape new men and maids,
and all the demons watch and break in a cold sweat.
Pale Spirit, you smile, but they don’t fear you, O dread Death; 1255
if only you won’t rush them, they’ll find time to sow
both earth and women to produce sons, daughters, seed!
Give them a little time; they’ll scorn to ask for more.”
But the lone hurried athlete shook his ruthless head,
for though that spendthrift, his proud mind, would grant all things, 1260
it would not give that greatest good of all things, Time.
Time was no mountain peak or thousand-year-old oak;
the head is a bright bubble, a teardrop filled with air,
above it the earth and heaven, lights and shadows play,
and when a light breeze blows, the head scatters and fades. 1265
Flat on their faces by the archer’s feet, the sons
awaited the great gift of Time from the strong hands
of the dread sage who held the rusty keys of earth,
but when the lone man laughed and held his fists clenched tight,
the blacks in startled terror rose and raised their axes: 1270
“Brothers, it seems that all our prayers have been in vain,
that’s the man-eating Spirit, the killer, the Old Chief;
strike, brothers, rope him swiftly or he’ll eat us all!”
But then the youngest son clasped a tall rock and moaned:
“Brothers, let’s cling to this stone phallus arm in arm, 1275
for the ground cracks, alas, and our feet sink in the earth.”
Then the maids saw their full breasts rot, and screeched with fear:
“Help us, dear brothers, hold us tight; we see dark wells
where we plunge headlong with our hands crossed on our breasts!
Death, let us live! Boughs, hold us up, don’t let us fall!” 1280
“Alas, dear sisters, this is no well, may it be cursed!
The Spirit stands here, silent, still. It gulps us all!”
Their feet and hands bound tight with azure air, they fought
and struck at empty light, their minds threshed in a dream,
their fingernails dropped out, their flesh swelled and turned green 1285
and worms crawled from the earth and gnawed their moldy brains.
They groveled on the ground and fought to catch their breaths,
but their white teeth fell to the earth like ears of corn,
and as the sun at daybreak sucks mists from the grass,
thus did the lone man’s blazing eyes gulp down the huge 1290
dark ghosts that rose from the damp earth to haunt his soul.
Then the earth cleared and the mind calmed, once more the pitch-
black portals of the bow
els closed, and the dread demons
crouched growling in the sunless cellars of the mind
till the glad archer wiped his sweating chest in sweet relief. 1295
The battle had been fierce, for many savage heads
had reared, rebellious in his mind to knock him down:
old recollections of dark caves, memory’s harsh cries,
old monsters, the mind’s phantoms, time’s appalling frights.
But his bull-fighting mind had raised its flaming lash 1300
so that all monsters knew their master, bowed their heads,
thrust their long tails between their legs, then yowled and stooped
beneath the sun’s bright yoke to till the fertile dark.
The lone man pulled the tangled reins and brought the world
to its true course once more and fixed Time’s wobbling wheels. 1305
Then the night-roamer stooped and in a crystal pool
of water cooled his eyes, his ears, his kindled brain
until the earth, too, cooled with him, and the sun laughed.
A small, small bird with yellow breast and crimson crown
raised its full throat in the clear sky and burst in song, 1310
and the plump squirrels in branches, drenched with warming sun,
gnawed gently at the new-leaved twigs with sweet delight
as their two eyes, like drops of water, mirrored all
the world about them—the green trees and the small nests.
The archer, gently smiling, rose from the great feast 1315
of savage memory, that old hag, and to the sun
spread his benumbed bow-loving hands to keep them warm,
and joyed to see the newly thickened drops of blood
turn slowly, gently, on his fingernails, to drops of dew.
XXI
Time slowly passed and the wheel turned, moons rose and fell,
earth stretched out like a fawn before the archer’s feet
and he stooped down and stroked it with a mute caress.
At times he passed by sluggish streets, or flowering fields,
or yellow sands that like a tiger flicked in light. 5
Varied aromas, birds, and tongues of strange men changed,
flutes, dances, and streets changed, and different kinds of masks
covered the ancient gods and aroused the eternal fears.
Stones rasped like crickets in the burning day, till night
fell like a sudden sword and split the world in two; 10
then beasts, freed from the yoke of the flame-archer sun,
prowled from their secret lairs in hunger, silently,
and the celestial candelabrum blazed with light.