I Looked at Angiush in the Pit of the Night

I wrote this one Aug. 27, 1997 in a LA apartment, 1200 miles away from my family. Being in a prison like that gives time for a man to think and reflect on what brought him there.

I looked at anguish in the pit of the night
Staring back at me
Cold gaunt haggard
My own reflection
Time of eternity hurtling past my optic nerves
Torture of my own making
My own naive manufacture
Rages of torrents pushing forward
Bursting my tongue from its prison
Striking randomly the walls that bind me
Striking continuously the walls that bind me
Taking away the eyes that blind me

I see what they're saying, now.
I see my way out-
The exit from the trap
(The only important thing to know about a trap)
I build again
I look at anguish and I must love it
Or it will devour me in tangible pain
Or intangible pain
Intangible pain
In tangible pain
I sit and see anguish in the pit of the night

It stares back at me
In cold hard gaunt-faced madness
Silence crosses its lips
As the roars of life fade and dim
Doppler reds end it all
Intangible
In tangible
Feelings
Rages
Rages of silence, rages of tangible words
Lace through my feelings
As I stare at anguish in the pit of the night
Rages of silence, rages of intangible words
Lance through my feelings
As anguish stares me down in the noonday sun.

And back in night again.
I extricate myself from my self-made trap
Ready with the tools to build another
As I gaze deeply into my own eyes
And look at anguish in the pit of the night.
It is me and I must love it
It is alien, and I do not understand it
I fear it
I embrace it
I love it out of frightened mystery
It hides behind a facade of flesh
Yet, even in its deception,
I love it.

I stand atop a pyramid to the sun
The blinding, cruel giver demands my heart-
Smoking, it breathes my life to the giver of life
As darkness crosses my eyes
And noon becomes midnight
And again I see anguish in the pit of the night
Inversions intangible
In versions of this theme
In tangible pain
I hold the blade coated with my own sacrifice
I wear my own skin stretched across my frame

Tlaloc sheds no tears in the land of the smoking mirror
Huitzilopochtli marches on through parched wastes
Until, shattered, they lay at the feet of children-
Children dancing in the summer rains
Children dancing in the wet air thick with humid flowers
Children dancing in the midst of lung-filling moist air
Alive, laughing, louder than thunder in their revels
Alive, laughing, brighter than lightning in their revels

Beating, wet with life
The heart swells within me again
The clouds close ranks overhead
And baptize my new-born soul

The children dance as night and day dissolve in the grey storm
As I stand atop the pyramid
And then slide down its glistening-wet sides
Laughing louder than thunder
Living brighter than lightning
Breathing in the rain, the blood of the sky
Breathing in the life showering down from above
In tangible love
Intangible love
Surrounds the laughter of the children
Who see no anguish
Who see no anguish in the pit of the night
Who see no anguish as the peals of their laughter shatter mountains
--as the peaks tremble in the universe
--shaken to its core
--by the peals, resounding peals of children's laughter
Who see no anguish in the pit of the night
Only their own smiles and suns
Burning within their god-given eyes.

And then they soar. The end.