Transformation

Transformation is a piece I wrote in the winter of 2008/2009 on the cusp of a major change in my life, both one of an outside cause and one very intense, internal shift.

Canto I.

A breeze with the smell of rain passes my breath. 

My mind relaxes, giving way to instinct. 

I close my eyes to feel the unseen breadth.

There is a calling in my cells quite distinct. 

It reaches out from the void to brush my heart. 

I welcome all of its expanse within me succinct.

This is where my passion will start. 

Here is where I am my true self. 

This is how my restraint may come apart.

I am of the living, unseen sea behind the shelf 

Of all commonly perceived reform. 

I am manifest to flesh and wandering amongst myself.

Passion moves this vital storm. 

Infinite and powerful passion gives my will form.

 

Canto II.

Alone, my thoughts writhe in darkness. 

They slither and twist amidst immutable shadow. 

They split, twist, intertwine and coalesce.

I journey on this path to know. 

It is easier to feel than to see. 

I take careful steps and observe below.

I can hear the trickle of passing absurdity; 

Something beneath me faintly seems to laugh. 

But I have set my eyes before me.

Ahead of me lies my path; 

So thus I walk forward from wrath.

 

Canto III.

I am crossing Da’at over the abyss; 

You must be Coronzon. 

You stand before me, daemon, enraptured in twisted bliss.

So strong is your dark passion. 

I am moved by the purity within your source. 

I am honored that you are what I stumbled upon.

You are an impassioned force. 

Am I to face you to push onward? 

Such confrontation is only a matter of course.

The way past you is barred. 

There is no use for me to agitate. 

Should I now drop the whole of my guard?

With a simple caress, you show me the gate. 

There I will find my self prostrate.

 

Canto IV.

Before I can face the daemon, I must face my self. 

I stare then down into the abyss. 

My reflection is there, ever so dark and without shelf.

I face my reflection; the other side of me is amiss. 

I’ve become unbalanced with an internal insurrection. 

This figure now risen is my own darkness.

I stand against myself and kill my reflection. 

I eat my still beating heart and become one. 

But then you say it is not enough, with lustful inflection.

I must know my self undone. 

I must venture into the very abyss. 

I must become its pulsing archon.

You seethe with such a forceful hiss. 

And with that, I dive into the abyss.

 

Canto V.

There are eyes in the shadows. 

They see all; they see you join my fray. 

They know of the sacred death throes.

Eyes in the shadows, I say; 

They watch you too! 

The eyes know all and they know the way.

You, in this ebb and flux, come too. 

You guide me on the currents. 

You illuminate the way we must go through.

This sea must be explored with no pretense. 

My dear shadow, feel relief. 

There is nothing in existence more intense.

We now see what the eyes see, 

There is no difference between the world and this sea.

 

Canto VI.

And so, daemon who leads me before 

The abyss, are you Cacodaemon or Agathodaemon? 

I think you are both, neither and much more.

We ride this vast sea upon 

The living universe. 

We ride this current together, Coronzon.

There is, within this, both blessing and curse. 

It is pain and pleasure; dead and alive. 

It is clean and profane; pure and perverse.

In this, I finally feel so very alive. 

I close in towards the sum. 

From this, I now open my being and revive.

All hindrances now come undone. 

I am now myself and I am one!

 

Canto VII.

Stretched across an abyss, 

My many forms dissent and split. 

The screams are a melodic dissonance, 

Both perfect and skewed. 

Manifestation becomes the abstraction without; 

Infestations of malice seethe within. 

I need not a guide here, but a grounding. 

Invoke me, by the living universe!

I am destroying my self to be renewed.

 

Canto VIII.

So many points of light and shade 

Pull at my realms ferociously; 

I am blinded and unmade.

I must save my self from entropy. 

I wrap myself in impenetrable shadow; 

I do all I can to avoid atrophy.

My mind squirms ever so low. 

In this state of emotional isolation, 

I murmur in feverish, obscene canto.

My chants slither into sweet desolation. 

My subtle shape shifts and, 

Forming a crescendo of vile incantation,

I am become the beast of the wasteland. 

I am become the wrath which will forever expand.

 

Canto IX.

Centered… 

A paragon of shadow remains, 

Spherical and glowing with black light.

Distilled… 

The pieces they ripped from me are shed; 

I sacrificed my self to my self.

Dormant… 

I am silent and still. 

I gestate and recreate.

 

Canto X.

All things weak and frail are excluded. 

The mundane and petty are cast off. 

What is crucial to the core merges.

Strength mighty, true and immutable, 

Honor pure and just beyond all doubt; 

They are become one with my being.

The ebb within its eternal pull, 

The flux within its eternal push; 

They are become one with my being.

The sacred currents that flow within, 

The divine ways unseen by the blind; 

They are become one with my being.

The unquestionable firmament, 

In all of its perfected glory, 

It is become as one with my self.

Within this spinning abyss, I pulse.

 

Canto XI.

There is a spark in the heart of the sphere. 

The spark grows into a flicker. 

There is no feeling here, no anger.

A flame of pure black gleans shear. 

There is no emotion yet, no warm heart. 

There has not yet been made fear.

But so grows the gift the flame will impart. 

It consumes the sphere in black fire; 

The sphere begins to come apart.

This melting womb lies in an amorphous pyre. 

No longer is the womb needed to adorn. 

All that contained the flame is afire.

A shadow swells out and takes solid form. 

I open my eyes and take breath reborn.

 

Canto XII.

I am reborn. 

I will myself into existence. 

I manifest my kingdom before me. 

I am beyond scorn. 

I will my ways into abundance. 

I manifest my world upon the sea. 

All that I was is torn. 

All that I willed became the expanse. 

All that I created was destroyed.

I awaken; I arise.

 

Canto XIII.

I rise up from the abyss, 

One and reborn. 

I am made of its waters, 

Fueled by its fires, 

Grounded by its rock, 

And I breathe of its air. 

It is the life of the universe. 

Its pulse is my pulse; 

Its breath is my breath. 

I rise with its flux; 

I fall with its ebb. 

In every moment, 

I sway in its current. 

I am but a point of focus 

In its encompassing plane. 

Emergence is smooth. 

I am a daimon and demigod. 

I will manifest my world. 

I bestow my self upon existence.

Through awareness and wisdom, 

With strength and honor, 

I am.

 

Canto XIV.

Terra forming a desolate mind, 

Abominations come forth 

To test and judge my worth.

I stand against the fire’s girth 

And weather the wind’s might. 

Through attrition I gain sight.

Temptation falls before my black light. 

I am steadfast with my kind; 

I am resolute upon this flight.

Weaknesses are felled in my wake.

I have become. 

I am awakened.

 

Canto XV.

I am rising up toward the surface 

From the depths to awakened 

Awareness. My spirit is without malaise.

My eyes have opened. 

I see a brilliant light cradling a visage 

Of darkness to which I am likened.

The air smells of cedar and sage. 

Here the living universe gives birth. 

I have not felt such power in an age.

A rumble passes through the earth. 

The winds prepare to dive. 

A storm on the horizon gains girth.

This place in my mind comes alive. 

As I draw breath, the currents thrive.

 

Canto XVI.

I am returning now; 

The bull of the earth grounds me.

I emerge from my sub-conscious; 

The common reality forms before me.

I have merged with my self; 

All that has occurred merely strengthened me.

I am reconfigured and refreshed.

 

Canto XVII.

Within darkness, there may be honor. 

The dark requires strength. 

Within shadow, the weak are brought low. 

The dark enslaves their bodies and dements their minds. 

Within the abyss, only the worthy may pass. 

The waters drown the useless to servitude. 

The worthy will float.

 

Canto XVIII.

I come through to the crown one and whole. 

The abzu flows within me. 

I am.