The Ghent Review Volume1, Number 1, summer 2016 | Page 55

Even death can be a choice at a particular junction. There is no other world
and this is it.

And not to be unto them what they would have me be.
Nor at their shrines to kneel as if a believer of their arguments.
I am other than they. This cannot be denied. I will not deny it and neither
will they though they seek to undo me daily.
I was weaned at a different nipple. I have drunk other milk.
Not yet of paradise but that will come to pass or a total damnation will cover
me. Sing of the dark?
I will sing of the dark if needs be, but I will sing.
Listen: my anthems are already upon my lips. I might warn but I will not
coheres. Listen: my anthems are already ringing.
I will sing of no generation but only of the generation that I am. And I will be
among them as the patriarchs were among their peoples.
I the burnishing and I the flame.
I onwards and out. Out. Out. Out.
-As a parting shot, tell me, if you had to choose an ancestor, who would it
be: Adam or Antigone?

The present is always on the verge of the past. Time is always on the verge of
goodbye but I haven’t said it. Will do of course. Can’t stay here. No room for
my soul’s forging.
That’s the nub.
Becoming. Being. All else is secondary. Not worth thinking about. Won’t
think about it.