The Gnostic

This existence is all double-dealing:
Man and world, world and God,
Always confusion, always dread.

Cosmos, reveal yourself, with a vengeance!
What do you demand of us?
To whom do we owe allegiance?

By which stars to set our course?
How to know the Divine Will?
Self is the stranger, in all despite.

Either ignorance or knowledge
Presses us to venture and forage,
Acolytes of the lost pearl.

Into the night, torches held high,
We process-malign spirit of matter,
We defy you, lighten and rise.

Jerusalem’s siege will be lifted,
The tyranny of order reversed,
When man jumps down from the Cross.

Despotic stars curse your splendour!
Celestial spheres, I spit upon you!
I am the Alien, the Accursed.

The truth was my murderer:
When he struck me I toppled and died,
My blood ran in the gutter,
My body was stripped to the bone.

Phoney Empire, I am the dissident in your midst;
No cell can hold me,
I walk abroad in brilliant disguises.

Sophia, prey to her own folly,
Wanders in the void and darkness,
Searching, lamenting, suffering and repenting,
Labouring passion into matter, yearning into soul,

Vainglorious Creator, lording it over all,
You ask me to repent.
I say:
You first.

This oubliette we call home,
Down among the rats,
Our warders the tyrants of heaven,
Our chains the black iron of Fate.
How can the soul ascend when every gate is barred?

Falsehearted Demiurge,
Go trim your Old Testament beard!
Father Christmas of misery,
Don’t come dropping down my chimney!

The hermitage and the brothel are one,
The anchorite and the libertine.
Stranger, are you homesick?
Do you remember your birthplace and weep?
Your name is foreign
But your face seems familiar.
Go now to the mountain and behold the sunrise,
And know that you must leave this place.

This bubble world will break when tested.
The demons have no thrones.
We rebels shall seize back power
And march in arms on every citadel,
Felling walls and towers with words.
Try to count the heavens and your head will reel,
And all of them we must outwit.

Who has cast me into the sump?
Who has stifled me in flesh?
In this turbulence we cannot be still;
The good perish and the noble come to nothing;
The candle left unguarded is soon snuffed.

The Whole is asunder.
Come, be a mender,
A fetcher of fire.


Still the soul is sinking,
Heavy as a dwarf star,
Spiralling downward without end.

Who has abducted us from comfort?
Who has thrown us into evil?
Barefoot on hot stones, we wander,
Mocked by the demons above.

The man bitten by a mad dog
Wanders babbling on stony roads
And the judge calls it justice
And the priest calls it truth.

Bring more wine, we shall toast the world,
Drunkards together, needing nothing
But the mercy of forgetfulness-
Bring on the dancing girls; this night is for seduction,
And may we not content ourselves with false love?

Poison is mixed with your wine at the feast
Till the cup falls from your hand and you slumber-
Who would not love such deep endless sleep?
Who would not yearn for such rest?

The snare is set, and the creature approaches,
Sniffing the air, looking this way and that,
And, seeing what its senses crave,
Gladly steps into the cage.

The call comes and the willing hear
The toll of a distant bell above the bedlam,
Summoning the chosen home.

The Messenger arrives and his enemies gang against him,
Determined to give him no share;
They beat him with sticks, throw stones and curses,
But still he keeps walking,
Shakes the sleeping awake,
Restores their names to them,
Points the way to freedom with a smile.

Infants clinging to mother’s breast,
We dread the call to depart.
The way is long and arduous, the tolls so high,-
Why not sit safely at home?

Flesh, soul and spirit, I wander in the world,
Fashioned in the image of Primal Man,
With the appetites and passions of the Archons,
Among the fallen sparks.
Does the Saviour come yet,
His hands full of fire?
Now is the time of gathering in,
The hour of blissful return.

Who has bound us to the black earth of Egypt?
Who has put the serpent at our throats?
We shall shed our shrouds and cross the Red Sea,
Out to retrieve the lost pearl.

Boastful ignorant Demiurge,
Crowing that you alone created all,
That you alone exist and there is none above you,
How wrong you are, how stupid-
Look above you-
There is Man!

Archons, cheap creators of this gimcrack world,
Is this rubbish heap the best you could do?
You are subalterns all, not generals,
Jumped-up usurpers in ill-fitting crowns!

I must learn the secret names of my oppressors
And the passwords of their tollgates.
Evil brilliance of stars, vastness of space,
The music of the spheres is the hissing of snakes.

Where speech and reason fail,
There is God,
Inviting and thwarting the quest.