The good Satan XIV

xxxxx

(to him)

Not that I'm freezing, no -
I warm my hands this way,
Master, breathing
your song into them,
your song, Master …

There you go.

I wonder if you notice

the flower wavering

on its leg,

softly looking into me

because this song is ending.

I wonder if it can end.

You say nothing.

As though now I might know;

my glance is golden,

green blue and nothing

can hold my head up

as it circles in the void

alone around your dream -

how many thousand times?

I cannot say

“Oh, tell me once more”

because I'm breathing your song...

into my hands, Master...

Not that I'm freezing...

The good Satan XIII

(to him)

I seemed to walk,

Master, I seemed

to float over dust,

over golden grains,

countless and numbered

for ever amen. The air

swirled round,

in it birds circling

like tea leaves, rightwards

went the clock

and the tower waved

with its princess

struck in the eye

from afar

so blind.

You say:

“Everything happens unhappened.

Nothing ever took place.

For the Other One you must dream,

if you wake, dream for him!”

Master, this tower,

it knows not what to do.

For the dream of a dead girl that lives

it will not kneel down

even before you.

Let me ask

in your name;

let it happen

happened:

her dearest, he may jump

through the eye of the tower!

Master, I plead:

tell the clock “Go left!”

 The good Satan XII

(to him)

I dreamt:

I hear: you say:

“Forest, carry me forwards!

I must lie on gold,

on the pure coin of the birch!”

You, the Good One,

there you are, as you implore:

“Dream of me!” Or am I dreaming this?

That lying down you race into the distance

that softly tears open their mouths.

A flower on your caftan,

a silk thread. “Let go!”

I called out: “Unloosen it, unloosen my hair!”

I dreamt that I called out.

And it dispersed.

And it ran on ahead of you,

hurried after you from distance to distance,

inseminated with radiance your night...

 The good Satan XI

(to him)

Master, I'm cold behind the eyelids, this decline...

Uninterruptedly the sun rolls on. “Child”

you said to me, you called me that

and suddenly circles flared up where I'm so cold.

Behind the eyelids are thunder claps, dear Master...

Speech becomes visible; one grasps

the nature of things. “Child”

you said, you called me that,

you gave me my meaning.

Now I'm running, the sea bears me up;

its finger tickles me, its clear blue finger,

it tickles me so much I sing quite softly,

and yes, I know I'm sinking in this song;

this silence, this water in my mouth,

does anyone hear it, grasp it...

Under the hollows of your skirt – there I am,

lying awake, in a dream: I'm dreaming: you tell me:

From my breath comes everything,

all that is beyond me: the world

that you spell out.

You do all that in my name,

you give it me till you're inside,

until you come, like a comet

hissing in reverse,

to attain my glance.

The good Satan X

(to him)

Let me go, Master, to the forest.

Let me graze on your hand.

Your thorny hand blooms, your hand supports the sky

that long, so long now, has hung lopsided.

Yes, this drop of red is called a berry.

That's what they call it, they give you names so they can know

their own place. You could not have done it more cleverly:

when they name you they cannot flee

to you

into vast, expanding space

unsummoned.

By the time you call

you will be named.

The hem of your skirt is tickled by the breath.

It forms words, seeks support

in the darkness and gently

circling you descend, Night!

Countless the names you gave us,

so we can give them to you. Over and over again.

Let me go, Master, to the forest.

Let me graze on your cheek,

stumble across your thorny hand,

which can never be angry even when it tears me apart.

That is who I am and always will be:

Gravitating Gentleness – your servant.

The good Satan IX

(to him)

No, leaves do not return to their branches

and shadows do not chase after their masters -

he has mounted his steed made out of breath,

warm prayers, unhurried speech

that turns in us at night, crushes us to smithereens.

That is not it, Friend.

You came as you are.

“Come back for everything!”

I called this out, I stood on the cliff, calling out.

Your eye then rolled out from the well,

clasped the finger,

your nearness slid along the thread

I sent to you, wherever you were.

I cast it into the sea, into the sky, submerged it under the earth.

I called out: “Come back for everything!

For the leaves that never arise,

for the shadow that unleashed itself in haste.”

Your tongue then rolled out of the well

and licked my salty heart, licked it clean.

While I slept. I stood on the cliff, singing.

“Come back for everything!” You came to dance.

By your foot my body was kissed until I bled.

Master, you made me so blind that I saw you, understood.

You the light that pervaded me, raised me from angels

and cast me down into the light. God's truth, Master!

The good Satan VIII

(to him)

I awoke, Master,

in the word you spoke,

I woke up and the coin

melted under my tongue.

Something golden dripped into the wind:

a butterfly that was no butterfly,

a leaf that went dancing.

It was you, Friend.

“Take this and that,” you said.

“Break this branch. Lie down on the grass.

Get up!” Your eye looked out from mine,

lit up the forest I was prowling through,

I could not see it but I knew:

my way is bright

and everywhere my Master.

“Be empty!” you said,

“Be empty, so you are filled

with things that are not yours.

Let everything in. Let it go, so it all comes back.

Your way is bright, you cannot see that, but it is.

The good Satan VII

(The Singer)

One should go to the door.

One should go out

into the world and know:

the world stays back in the room

where you sit, one of you.

The Other One lies in the air,

singing. His song – a banner,

pale and searing

in shadows;

they crawl towards the Third One.

He opens the door,

lets the world in,

a roaming guest,

goes out into the world,

knowing

that I created everything.

Yes, I climbed the tower and sang,

so you will sing, child.

With the dagger I thrice encircled

my heart.

Three times I struck a cross

dividing up the space:

into north, south, east and west.

Those are words like us.

Yet they are. With roots deep

in the air where you lie,

where you sing,

one of you

for the Second One

and Third One,

my Best One.

The good Satan VI

(The Tender One)

You awake,

falling,

falling far,

you lose

your reality.

Between horizons shines:

a shattering sign – my shape,

that ventures not to call you,

for you are engrossed in your falling.

Child, you awake,

right yourself,

racing for dozens and dozens of times

passing the reality by

that you belong to.

On the horizon you rip your clothes.

Do you see: this cloud of smoke

is my shape;

this hunchback sign

is me -

a knight, a horse

that leans sideways,

tenderly watches you, dying,

for it cannot call out to you.

The good Satan V

(The Dreamer)

I let you dream:

You bite on the Earth's core,

the iron apple.

All truth briefly fawns upon

your mouth and troubles you.

Now you know the world.

Now you wish for nothing more.

Your mirror comes closer,

showing its breast,

where you swim.

You swim, you swim in there.

My hand, charged air,

I lay upon it, so you believe

in something, if only in me.

You wake up (in your dream),

touching the scales of your body.

My child, when, if you wake up,

you wake up as a knight,

you may serve me,

and be happy once more...

In the empty universe your head circles round.

It cannot fall, it cannot stop.

Ten thousand times it rushes through my dream.

Oh yes, I'm dreaming of you.

The good Satan IV

(The Entangler)

You order the dead to arise,

so your breath is a floral scarf

blazing silk in the wind.

You order, believing you will it,

but I say

what happens here.

In silence this will pounds away.

In the fist the heart softly sings.

Don't look there, for you'll fall.

See how slowly you are not flying.

Have you any idea what you are:

someone else and yet

I hug and caress you,

my prey, my game.

I see clearly what you are up to,

I see, I hardly see at all,

forgetting, to burn the brighter

remembering it.

Deceiving you is my joy.

Drinking you is my pleasure.

Making you my follower,

the ploughshare of my dreams,

the leading dream

I tear apart as I go,

and tread on gently;

like a ring into the well

is how I glide. Into my own.

Again. If you look there

you will see nothing

and still be petrified

at what you see.

The good Satan III

The Lonely One

You would be a new slave, my child,

Another One in you, you in the Alien One – me.

I call you both: you and him and it's myself I mean.

You come running like pearls.

Your pain is so white

and it flutters so high.

Three times it hurts me.

Three times it enslaves the one

that is your own.

Three times strung upon themselves.

So I wander across the hand of this world.

I am silent, yet I call out, I call to you,

the Other One in you, you in the Alien One – myself.

You both were, you both are … Your realm … Whiter and whiter,

nearer and nearer, the further it is.

The tear tenderly rolls back into the eye.

Stars fade in its body,

stones that glow and turn to stars.

They strike my head and do not kill me.

Never. Because they cannot.

The good Satan II

(The Wounded One)

My name is not Ruth.

Not Ruth is my name.

I'm called Flower, Stone, Crystal.

My name is anything but Ruth.

Because you love her. You say:

I love her too now.

In vain I will flee from words

you take into your mouth,

which you touch with your mouth.

Just as the world is love everywhere.

I run away from me

and keep catching myself up.

Just like death is this woman everywhere.

She could be me

and your white hand on her …

It's all the same, whether here or there,

whether you hold her in your arms,

or life itself -

you get your life through me alone.
It is me, child.

The good Satan I

(The Seducer)

A beautiful perhaps

is what you believe in.

Belief itself,

its gleaming,

quivering image.

Embrace the big picture

and hold on? Who can do that?

Just as the sky's bare foot

sticks out a little,

and that's enough to fluster people,

so it is with the big picture, child.

You hide your glance from me.

You hide your blue green glance.

Your golden glance powders this darkness

which suddenly, oh so suddenly, fell at half past eight

in the place it shares with its brother, light.

You say: “It travels back and forth below ground,

light for the dead, so they can meet

and find each other: their heavenly kingdom ...”

You are right.