Poem:

[radiantfracture]

This morning's work, prompted by reading Enkidu is dead and not dead by Tucker Lieberman, a gift from sabotabby .

* * * * * *


I come in from the outside of that city.
I come in; the door is unguarded.
The door is unguarded
to go in. It’s the way out that is venomous,
fanged, seething with fire.

It’s Enkidu who knows me. Knows himself not
as human, wild but not predatory,
with silky hair. I have dreamed
of Enkidu.

They threaten you, these other men
in the snake’s gullet.
There’s only room inside this great city,
Poisoned-Snake-Guts,
for real men. Your sweetness, your weakness –
this time, they swear they will drive you out.

The snake is immortal. It has eaten
their immortality. The men are searching
for their unbounded lives, here
in the bone-barred throat, smelling their freedom
in the snake's bowels.

Yet you never are expelled. Only cursed,
punished, your face shoved
into the acid sea that sloshes
around the men searching through shit
for their immortality.

That is Poisoned-Snake-Guts: unbreachable
and terrified. You can never leave,
unless you leave.

I say you and I mean you, Gilgamesh.
You are bound to your city.
Your magnificent wall holds you
like the throat of the snake.
If you run with me, no matter how far we go,
you will always turn back to Uruk. I like Uruk:
but I go where I please.
I am the man who goes between.

I say man and I mean it, and yet
I am no man of Uruk.

You shake your head. No, you say, we
tamed you. Cut your hair. Gave you
beer and bread. You liked the beer, you
smile. And the bread. And the bed.

Gilgamesh, I have travelled here, long days
and nights in their thousands, down
the road of the snake, into its stinking guts,
to bring you back to the world, which you call
wilderness.

But always when I begin to explain
your eyes return to the gleaming walls of Uruk
bright as copper, as a strand of measuring-wool
in the waning sun.

* * * * * *

§rf§

Comments

[ursula]

This is lovely.

[radiantfracture]

Thank you!

[sovay]

Your magnificent wall holds you
like the throat of the snake.
If you run with me, no matter how far we go,
you will always turn back to Uruk. I like Uruk:
but I go where I please.
I am the man who goes between.

This is great.

[radiantfracture]

Thank you!

[yarrowkat]

Gilgamesh, I have travelled here, long days
and nights in their thousands, down
the road of the snake, into its stinking guts,
to bring you back to the world, which you call
wilderness.

yes. this is fabulous.

[radiantfracture]

:D Thank you! The wilderness bit turns out to be a half-remembered quote from Ursula K. Le Guin, and probably a thousand other people.

[sabotabby]

Oh hells yes.

[radiantfracture]

Lol. I really love that collection. Thank you for sending it.

I think it's so interesting for Lieberman to identify with Gilgamesh, or at least to speak in his voice, when for me it has to be Enkidu.

But then also, this idea of somehow being the lost beloved, witnessed by the subject, is also powerful. The weird yet familiar displacement of it.

I admit to being v pleased with this one. The role reversal, and making the trans analogy more plain.

[sabotabby]

Huh, I never thought about that. If I had, I'd have guessed the opposite, based on knowing Tucker and also having read as much as is easily available of his writing.

[radiantfracture]

You mean you would have guessed he would identify with Enkidu?

[sabotabby]

Yeah. To be fair, I would guess that 90% of my friends would identify with Enkidu.

[radiantfracture]

And like I do sometimes, or even often, write from the perspective of The Gilgamesh, as it were, to kind of feel more real as the Enkidu because witnessed by him. Externally created. So it could be that. I'm curious.

[sabotabby]

...I can ask.

[radiantfracture]

Right. Somehow that feels like cheating. But I'd like to know!

[sabotabby]

No he is delighted that we are having Constant and Forever Gilgamesh Discourse.

Quoted with permission:
"I think of myself more as the unnecessarily uptight and boring friend, the one who conceives of the world ordered in a certain way.

As the Bert who likes to be with Ernie.

Not the Wild Man, but envious and admiring of those who are more Wild, and seeking their company.
So I identify more with Gilgamesh and thus am speaking in his voice.
I bet Enkidu has some shit to say about Gilgamesh."

[radiantfracture]

Oh man that makes perfect sense. Now I want to send him the new Gilgamesh poem from Tuesday.

[sabotabby]

You should!

[moon_custafer]

I really liked the ending:

Gilgamesh, I have travelled here, long days
and nights in their thousands, down
the road of the snake, into its stinking guts,
to bring you back to the world, which you call
wilderness.

But always when I begin to explain
your eyes return to the gleaming walls of Uruk
bright as copper, as a strand of measuring-wool
in the waning sun.

[radiantfracture]

Thank you!

I was worried it ended too abruptly, but there didn't seem like there could be another ending for Gilgamesh.