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.

[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.

[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.

[sabotabby]

Oh hells yes.

[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.