Skandalon: Poems

Eastbound: The Book of Enoch

35 Ea stbound The Book of Enoch We recognize the man with the whip by his smell, even in the dead of night, as we call it, even when we sleep, as we say, Like a stone: he enters our dream and the stink of his sweat wakes us just before the flagrum comes down, commuters On the platform driven, train driven. The world is burning, Heraclitus wrote. East, the great desert takes the lash Of solar flares. The man in the window seat is not perspiring. A leather bag and a bottle of water rest in his perfect khaki lap. I have resumed the studies I started years ago, he says; I investigate the angels who are everywhere around us. The aisles of this train are full of them, And the platforms at the stations; some of us in these seats are angels. His face behind his sunglasses is serene as the train rolls smoothly. In the ancient book, canonical in Ethiopia, the angels lusted after the daughters of women. They made a pact of silence And fathered a race of giants, who prospered and devoured the earth. My grandfather learned this from adepts in Addis Ababa: We must love everyone and be kind to every stranger, lest we offend God’s agents. Beyond the horizon there is a great mechanical quaking, The gears of the Imperium grinding into a corrosive bronze dust. And there I saw One who had a head of days, and His head was white like wool. And we recognize him because he punishes us for our inconstancy— we are not faithful to our Being like the stones or the fruits of trees. Therefore shall ye execrate your days, and the years of your life shall perish, ye shall be blown across your desert lives like tumbleweed Before the Mercedes-Benz, ye shall enter into office buildings weeping and drive yourselves, and marry, and suffer the everlasting scourge. ...