The black gate cannot be walked up to, you can only fall upon it.
I fell upon it once,
Under the November chill,
On the eighteenth day,
Of the nativity,
Of eleven elven Eves,
That join one to one,
On the eighteenth day,
Of the oneness month.
The black gate,
Had no beyond,
It wasn’t a threshold,
It was just inert.
There stood mother,
Hushing me, “shoo, shoo, shoo,
Go back son,
For the time hasn’t come”.
Eleven elves eyed me,
From a distance,
As vast as vastness itself.
The shores of Styx,
Echoed a hollow breath,
And at dusk, it dawned upon me,
That I wasn’t dead.
The black gate,
Did not burn,
No hell exists.
The black gate,
Did not freeze,
There is no Satan,
Lucfier is dead,
Not I.
The black gate,
Did not breathe,
But there is no death.
With…
Boots of blood spatter,
Broken teeth,
I arose,
Lifting the torso,
From the ground,
Exiting blackness,
Like a Lazarus wrapped and bound,
In muslin.
My t-shirt wept,
Red tears,
That it had caught,
Amidst their,
Descent from the mouth.
Friends and carers abound,
I staggered unto a sink,
Feeling my broken mouth,
Fractured jaw,
And what have you!
The water tap,
Spat out pools,
And my mouth,
Did too.
Drip, drip, drip,
Whirl, whirl, whirl,
And whoosh…
Blood drops,
That dissolved,
In the water,
That came from watery eyes.
Blood drops,
Jumped head first,
Into the black void,
At the bottom,
Of a wash basin.
The blood that beat the sink,
Dowsed death,
And defied “le fin”.
In leaving life,
Death was not found,
Only a black gate,
That opens both ways,
Into death,
And into life.
The eleven elven Eves,
Wouldn’t let the heart stop,
Perhaps, I have more people,
Yet to love,
More days, yet to live,
More moments,
To laugh.
To laugh it all off,
To lament not,
But to wonder,
Where did I go?
Why did I go?
Where is the black gate?
Where and when,
Will I return to it alas?
When will time cease?
When will the breath stop?
And when will the heart,
Skip the final beat,
Beating the retreat,
Of years of woe?
I will falter not,
Fail not,
Languish not,
Fear not,
And forever,
Will I hold the fetter of life,
With little or no ambition,
But with just the will to live.
I shall live,
A post-mortal life,
Of an unquestioned Karma,
Like Lazarus of Bethany,
For death is not,
An alien,
It lives within us all.
It sleeps when we wake,
And wakes when we sleep.
जय भूतनाथ (Hail the lord of ghosts)
जय कपालिन (Hail the skull bearer)
जय भिक्षातन (Hail the lord of beggars)
जय अधोर (Hail the lord of aescetics)
जय त्रिलोचन (Hail the three eyed)
जय जटाधारी (Hail the wearer of dread locks)
जय शंभो (Hail Shambhu)
जय काशीनाथ (Hail the lord of Kashi)
अलख निरंजन, अलख निरंजन, अलख निरंजन
(the impercieveably formless).
The eleven elven Eves,
Hold my heart now,
Pumping blood,
From vein to vein,
They rub my back,
For breath to breathe,
They grab my limbs,
For movement to flow.
They embalm me in a second life, whispering about people to come, things to appear, deeds to be done, fears to be left behind, and the miles to be walked, for the unknown to become known. I swam in the lake of metaphysics, sans logic, sans dialectic. Neither sensation nor emotion could hold me as I swam. I had become colourless, formless, and unpercievable.
I swam in a black lake,
A blake lake by the black gate.
The black gate,
Is a speck of dust,
A microsecond,
That felt like minutes,
To the rescue party.
Three minutes were spent,
By friends and carers,
Touching my cold skin.
They believed I was dead,
Done, kaput, finished, departed.
My heart beat itself,
Down to a slow sullen pace,
It crawled upon a wall of black.
But did it cease?
Certainly not,
It still beats as I write this,
And will beat no more retreats,
It will beat only,
The moments to come.
I awoke and spoke,
The words of Eliot:
“To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all”.
Come, come, come now,
Let me tell you all,
The eleven elven Eves,
Have alas, led me to the one,
That matters.
I have seen the black gate,
But walk up to it, I did not.
Fell upon it, sure I did,
Like a white feather,
That falls on a mourners knee, like a spirit that lingers.
The eleven elven Eves,
Are one now,
Pre-born just for me,
On the fouth day,
Of the third month,
Of the second year,
Of the decade of my
Origin.
That one Eve,
Is second nature to me,
The one Eve.
That will I follow,
Till my next,
Rendezvous,
With the black gate.
I see the six eyes,
Of Dattatreya,
Stare me down,
From an elevated vantage point,
The maker, keeper,
And destroyer, as one.
The two ones,
Of eleven have been,
Joined into one.
The one white feather,
On the black gate of the unknowable:
अलसस्य कुतो विद्या,
अविद्यस्य कुतो धनम्।
अधनस्य कुतो मित्रम्,
अमित्रस्य कुत: सुखम्।।
