Beyond the wilderness
Of awesome, towering rocks and sheer cliffs
The shifting sands turn low and level
Giving way to a cruel, greedy world
A world of wealth and power
That rises from stone with might
Amid thick, dense cloud and black lightning
To scrape the heavens
And whip up the dust around her
Her name is Egypt.
Standing by water
She dwells in satiety and security
Boasting machinery and muscle
Mathematics and medicine
And all the power under the sun
One might say her countenance
Shines like that of a burning star
But this is no light of the righteous
For the wells of this world are contaminated
Her air polluted
By a plague of darkness
Woven from the environment
Crafted by the population
It feeds on Egypt
While Egypt feeds on it
Invisible to the untrained eye
But let me show you how they mould it into bricks
How they build our world from it
Let me show you how they call the darkness down
And spread it to every corner of this sunken world
Through the Nile
Her bountiful waters flow down from the south
Carving an oasis through the desert
Each year the river rises without fail
To burst its banks
And flood the land with prosperity
Blue, green, yellow
Soaking into the soil
Raising crops from the earth
We leave our homes to exalt
In the lapping waves that spill over to the luscious
Reeds and grasses
That permeate her banks
The sheep and cattle that graze and quench their thirst
With endless water
All you could ever need
Yes, they cleave to the Nile
And her fertile soil
Her carpet of grass lays down our borders
Tied to the deep blue ribbon
Each year we flock to her
To dance and to rave
To bow down
At the foot of the waters
Drink deeply
And let it drown you
Grab from the breadbasket
And cram yourselves full
Till it gushes from your nose
And slobber trickles from your mouth
What of those who say
“From where will our food come tomorrow?”
Don’t worry
The Nile will flood
That’s why I abandon myself so entirely
To these low, wide waters
That rise so high they choke me
Through the life
Not an animal kingdom
So much as a kingdom of animals
The cat, who slinks through the grass and pounces
The sheep, that keeps its head down and eats
The crocodile, whose jaws snap shut on its prey
We follow them around
Applaud their natures
Ascribe them to our gods
Predator, prey
Prey, predator
To us it’s all the same
Cycle
Try to run, back to the desert
Run? Why should I run?
This is who I am
An animal in the woods
A slave to the constellations
And no one ever gets out of Egypt.
You can’t escape her
Any more than the cat can turn back from the mouse
Than the croc can relinquish his victim
This is Egypt
And these are our gods
Take your place within her
For we desire, aspire to be a kingdom of animals
Come and join us
Through the temples
Of stone and cool sand
Where the priests walk barefoot
Among shrines and gold figurines
Performing rites to the gods
Many gods
Who divide up the land for themselves
Within the walls of writing
The man distributes the portions
To you, to you
It is a fractured light
That shines forth from Egypt
Before the jackal headed statue
The man takes the silver knife
Raises his arm
Shouts a cry to the gods
And slits the skin
Blood spills from the wound
Staining the statue red
And a new power enters the men
Filling every vein of their bodies
To sacrifice more life
To gods of stone and copper
The men become wild
Turning in low circles
Invoking names
Hands clutching amulets
And their voices rise to howls
Howls born from the depths of man
As they dance to the tune of these forces of darkness
Which they themselves harnessed
Dressed in an unclean spirit
The men get up to sport
Drunk on the power of idolatry
Through the pyramids
Even they are products of the plague
Set against dark, sandy skies
A symbol of empire
At the top, the Pharaoh
The pinnacle of the kingdom
The shining sun
The blazing divinity
At the base, those like me
We who carry the kingdom
On bent backs and aching shoulders
Pressed into the ground by those above me
No way to escape
For I am but a single stone
They don’t let me reach any higher
They need us to prop them up
And as I toil in this labour
Watching the sun rise above the sand
– Another day
– Another round
The glaring rays only hammer home
That I am pinned in place
By the omnipotent orb
And its perpetual cycle across the heavens
Go still further
And you will see
That their inner chambers house another world
A world of preservation
Of bodies stuffed and sealed within gold
Piled with food
Stocked with treasures
Pieces to carry through
Flying in the face of he who says
“You are dust, and to dust you shall return”
Egypt is no tomb
It is a womb, replete with sodomy and sorcery
And no one ever gets out of Egypt
