Seeker Magazine

The Testament of Lilith


by John Ballam


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CHAPTER ONE:

  1. [lacuna]

  2. [...] But his silence of mind is betraying
    And his dream-whispered words out of time
    To the wife who kneels by him, praying,
    While he murmurs a child-like rhyme.

  3. Then wet with the light through his window
    His waking eyes fall on her pose—
    Her bowed head laying its shadows
    On the white disarray of her clothes.

  4. And the darkness that billows around her
    As she stands by the curtained skies,
    Like puppet-demons surround her
    To mock at their mistress's sighs.

CHAPTER TWO:
  1. As black and grey reflections
    Dance on the marble wall,
    Their sculpted white complexions
    Sit separately in awe.
CHAPTER THREE:
  1. They hear a song of summer played…

  2. Above the deafening mental roar
    A haunting melody is made.

  3. They hear a song of summer played…

  4. A moment by their souls delayed
    Before it's swept beneath the door.

  5. They hear a song of summer played
    Above the deafening mental roar.

CHAPTER FOUR:

  1. '... So that was all and we lay sprawled there,
    Each of us alone in the same space.
    But you have to wonder as you look at the ceiling,
    Pale with imagined love,
    What is the use of ecstasy?

  2. When your soul lies damp and helpless,
    Huddled in a corner of your conciousness,
    What, you may ask, remains?

  3. Your body crouches, crooked in its earth,
    An animal with a bone out-of-joint,
    Unable to move, and speculating.

  4. "Why?" the beast wonders.

  5. Sex pushes the will towards an unnatural death.
    It dies because it cannot find its source.
    It dies gone blind and betrayed.
    It dies, withered and weary,
    With the ache of diseased wounds.

  6. Still, unexpected trembling remains.

  7. "Why?" the beast wonders.

  8. What is the vast experience of Life
    Cornered in this action
    That turns in defiance upon thought
    Only to be wrecked and left quivering,

  9. Uncertain even if it will be remembered
    By victorious reasoning?'

CHAPTER FIVE:
  1. Experience is deserved
    Even if its meaning
    Is uncertain knowledge.

  2. Her spirit flutters
    Upward in her dream
    On little grey bird-wings
    And nests upon his soul.

  3. What music would a spirit
    Taken wing enjoin?

  4. Perhaps a breathless tune
    Will rise from out the depths
    To mourn a moment longer
    At the wretched animal
    Lying flushed with the blood
    Of self-inflicted wounds.
CHAPTER SIX:
  1. Change begins itself.

  2. She has risen from the floor
    And walks back to bed.

  3. Perhaps, it was just
    A light refraction and not
    The tingle of Fate
    That caused her to glance
    In the mirror on the wall
    Only long enough
    To see the sun dance
    In the tangles of her hair,
    And then slip away.

  4. But such causation
    Is the first impediment
    Of the conscious will.

  5. And now, though denied,
    She feels the desire of Self
    Flash beneath her skin
    Like an unsure flame,
    Reflected in a cavern
    As bright as lightning.

Copyright 2003 by John Ballam (No reproduction without express permission from the author)

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Letter to the Author: John Ballam at johnballam@hotmail.com