Throat of the Beast

and it occurs to me
that I, in this field,
yelling at that needle-stick
vein-splitting, first fuck, first love
first light for a born-blind man
kind of addiction,
that while I'm knelt in this high grass,
proposing nightly
to the Nothingness which always wears Everything's little black dress,
that I might just be screaming up the neck of another beast

that that deep black world which consumes me
is the chamber just before the dark twist of a throat
in a creature that also casts his cries to distant fires
whose burning he imagines
as merciless as his own

if I am to become the climbers in my ribs
then I must cast my ropes to the stars
shoulder the loved ones that believe enough to come
put my feet to these walls and walk
into the voicebox of this restless everything,
believing this climb is the right one,

up and across his desert tongue to the back of his teeth I'll climb
finding I'm natural to his song
the accent which flavors his speech in the night
I am the riot in the chest of the beast
the rising tide that brings his fists to his body,
the current on his skin
that makes him believe lightning's responsible for the rhythms
that rock him from sane and steady

I am the voice in all the rivers which run far below these cliffs
taunting jump or not I'll make you remember this
whether your history is interesting is entirely up to you