Ringing by Rauan Klassnik

“She is going to kill you, yes. But she is filled with music. Ringing all around you. And ringing.”

——Henri, Le Comte de Tour

Like Rumi: who drinks and feels and lets his mind go loose like a camel——one of God’s creatures, made of flesh and blood, needs and urges——a camel, wandering about in cool darkness.

I want to fuck you. Fuck you and fuck you. A train’s grinding northward——It’s called “The Beast”——and its wake hospitals and churches flounder. Fuck you. Fuck you and fuck you.

I entered as a God, and now I’m a stranger——all this love in filthy puddles, in jungles, chained together, crumbling. You’re coming towards me. The sun’s behind you. You are tall and dark. I am crying. I want you to fuck me crying.

You’re pushing me back down on the bed now and you’ve got my wrists above my head and you’re eating me out. Licking up between my breasts. It’s dusk. Your grip’s tightening. I’m sinking. Like fish in cool shade. Birds like planets——all ripped up.

You’re rising up from the bath and covering yourself with a towel. We’re late again and I’m chewing my nails. Enlightenment’s a long glimmering river. I’m taken out, bent over——and my head’s cut off. In the sun’s long red hair. And all its trees. And all its rocks.

Death comes quickly——laid back, wrapped in a thin red towel. And a voice——kneeling in weeds——panting.

O, God, let me love!——and dive down into the silver, trembling water——and eat you. My neck’s bent back. All the colors tightening. On the kitchen floor. Fucked roughly. But kissed sweetly. My God!

A dog’s lapping up water. The sky’s darkening. Like walking into an empty room, expanding. Your mouth! Your cunt!——Eternity’s caged round me, and I am trying, inside you——to get to God. Over and over! Till we’ve turned into birds. Huge, concrete, black.

Like ships leaning together licking each other’s shoulders, we fall down and dig at the earth. Fervently. Like jackals. Fire’s leaping from hill to hill, and my nerves are swaying like seaweed. I have learned to die. And not to. My veins are filled with milk.

Like a bayonet into music: you! Pools of light. Smoke, disappearing. Corridors of candles. It all stacks up. And up. But, you will save me! Put your arms around me and squeeze me till I can’t stop breathing.

Hacked down and skinned. A pile of bones. The world just eats and eats.

Curled up against each other we licked and sucked till we came splashing in each other’s faces. A chimp’s running down through the streets in the rain. Suddenly he pulls into a doorway where a woman’s undressing. We must have looked so cool——arched back, waving. Columned. Spired. Domed.

That night I first went down on you I knew we were doomed. But you tasted so good, and we watched Titanic, and we poured champagne straight down each other’s throats. Making love I described us walking into church together. Soldiers tipped up their swords. Dogs started barking and wouldn’t stop. The sand on our hands so hot the blood boiled off in us.

Hooked through us like gut on fire she’s winding the light up in a spiral. Like fish, hanged, ecstatic. All the ways to scream! Her eyes bulge. Stars swarming. In her hair. Down her face. She goes down on her hands and knees. All the ways to scream! A pair of wolves, glowing in darkness——and brought down in darkness.

A man cuts his monkey’s fingers off. In heaven I will find you. Among the pigeons and scraped bodies. The sky’s spinning round and round. Vultured color. Darkness throbbing. Like a child spun round and round. It does not stop.

I am glowing. I am blown up with light. I am draped in every tree. All the shores are dead with me.

A truck filled with cattle’s overturning. It goes down on its side, sliding. All you can see’s silver. Like music. As you walk among them. As you touch their heads. As you go down through the pine trees, kicking a rock——in the bright light whistling.