Cusp

by Graham Mort

  I am the light of the world! The one

  and only Elektro Electricus Electricity!

  I’m the path of righteousness the way of

  all things The Juice! I’m the amber glow

  of a leopard’s eye brindled by its own fur

  I’m a white tongue forking sky with truth’s

  high fidelity I’m the heart of matter –

  Sensational! I’m the tongue’s tender slug

  squirming in your mouth your palette’s

  glottal-stops stuttering your vocal chords

  fluttering under exhaled oratory speech’s

  butterfly flitting from thought to thought

  in the short hay-sweet summer of human

  breath I’m the mouth’s and the mind’s

  embouchure fluting the world’s cadences

  Things and the space they’re in all that’s

  between them and beyond I’m intelligence

  and what it apprehends even its own

  subtlety speed and essence I’m the bolt

  of lightning in your brain Homunculus!

  Your ancients put me to such simple games

  (between slaughter you’ve made them

  children at) The way dust stuck to a resin

  pebble The way a rod of fossilised pine

  tar picked up a feather or a spar of jet or

  raised a girl’s crackling mist of hair Even

  those battle-crazed Crusaders those Mars

  struck horse-borne unearthly errant knights

  were fearful of the charge that prowled

  hot armour that click of blade on bone

  shocking the groom’s cybernetic arm I

  was bewitching daemonic elusive a

  sleeping beast or beauty highly charged

  definitely on the wild side where anything

  could happen and did without your know

  how or why – the way I like things best

  I was legend folklore pure faery sheer

  unadulterated undiluted unaccounted

  Myth I told you the world was more than

  it seemed and more various I induced

  your godly instincts through naked

  uninsulated fear lit candles in each

  way-side shrine struck psalms from the

  flint walls of chapels novenas from

  each church’s vaulted hush Respect!

  But what hype! What snake-oil conning!

  Cheap tricks! Such superfluity of terror

  Such abundance of superstition! Such

  sophistry somersaults forward rolls

  and back-flips of theological minds

  Such pogroms persecutions and piss

  taking Such whispered prayerful

  susurrations! Holy shit! The whole

  religious racket from Allah to Yaweh

  to sweet creeping Jesus sparked by

  the odd incineration forest fire

  stricken ass or burning bush! That

  was more than even I’d bargained for!

  I was Other The unknown ineffable

  uncharted realm weird dimension of

  the unmapped unexplored undiscovered

  land at sky’s end I was the cartographer’s

  wet dream the dragon’s tail thrashing an

  ocean’s curdled clouds to foam I took

  a long-term view so this was all a gamble

  a game the first round of a hidden hand

  a spot of pitch and toss just for starters

  This was catch-as-catch-can and let’s

  face it – you couldn’t No sooner did you

  have me than I’d gone Here one minute

  absent the next Now you see me now

  you don’t I’m nothing if not philosophical

  Times change even if Time doesn’t Only

  teasing! (But you know what I mean)

  Now you think that just by looking in

  my direction with a little algebra the

  mathematics of that juiced-up brain I

  grew for you that I could be changed by

  your cat-killing curiosity be somehow

  different than I am? You think that your

  inquisition might change me? Now listen

  up and listen good! I’m no pathetic fallacy

  no abstruse allegory no mere metaphor

  illusion allusion or fable I’m no pale shade

  or parable I’m not your elusive immortal

  damnable everlasting soul I’m no loitering

  wraith of your pale consciousness No way!

  It’s me that cuts the mustard round here

  and pretty damned hot so get this into your

  pretty little head once and for all I’m not

  like I am merely because you see me that

  way No! I simply am Get it? Got it? OK

  I’ll concede I’ve never made it easy for

  you but why should I? I’m downright

  touchy a twisted twat a nightmare to

  know Clasp me just once the wrong

  way and you’ll feel the lash of my studded

  belt and not let go you’ll hang on for

  grim death see me glitter in the darkness

  beyond life (that gutter you’re star-gazing

  from) You’ll find out that I’m for real I’m

  for keeps Hey presto! Abracadabra! One

  flash of light just one glance in your direction

  and everything’s over changed forever or

  begins again The boulder skids backward

  over time’s scree of broken hours avalanching

  the millennial mountain burying the back

  breaking ball-grinding path trodden by those

  selfish genes DNA’s little scam to get ahead

  There! I told you I was a god though not the

  oracular or household sort Not the meekly

  crucified or doe-eyed kind More baleful

  more Baalful more the jealous type the

  wrathful deity shock-jock or vengeful Jove

  Give me a rod of blue-blazing iron over a

  crook of curled horn any time! Eléctricité

  Electricidad Elektrizität Name me if you

  can It was always worth a try But remember

  I name you and name your world – the way

  you sign yourself in billboard lights across

  your tiny global one-horse town But what’s

  in a name when your idea of time is so

  temporary so touchingly tentative? Oh I

  grant you were a quick learner once you’d

  bred out the ape in you dug into rocks

  mined minerals felt magnesian’s tug at

  iron the lodestone swinging north in its

  twine cradle Earth’s drawn guts quivering

  the longboats sculling through fire and

  blood This way to Old Nick the grand

  paymaster! This way to cash and carry

  the wages of sin! This way to the immanent

  ineffable glorious everlasting Truth! You

  country hicks you hat-tipping straw-chewing

  gobsmacked stunt-pulling hucksters were

  getting slick and warm at last I was in no

  hurry I’d seen it all before Another time

  another place But of all the crummy joints

  in the universe you had to pick this one?

  Play it again but get the tempo the melody

  the key the chords the sequence of the song

  straight I’m pure hubris in the hands of man

  I’m Zeus’ head-banging brat the thorn

  scorching fire of war the double-edged double

  honed double-crossing blade of beauty

  splitting the marble-white Olympian brow

  Talking of mythology (the comic-strip way

  you explain things) remember Hephaestus?

  That crippled arc-welder up to no good?

  And his thieving mate Prometheu
s? His

  true theft his true gift was me and I was

  torture to him ever after Guilty as charged

  chained with iron riveted in bronze

  shocked by Zeus’ thunder-bolted finger

  gutted by lightning’s ravening white

  eagles on the drenched rocks of…Well

  yes let’s get to it eternity Eternity?

  Tell me about it! That snatched meaning

  that smugly human word for endlessness

  infinity the always-vacant room beyond

  the desk clerk’s grasp No sooner do you

  spiral out there on your pretty diaphanous

  angel’s wings of thought (that luminous

  flux of light imagination’s voltage

  guttering in the vacuum packed space

  of heaven) than you bolt back blackbox

  it with laws solder it with words the

  leaden vowels of a quotidian mind Then

  when it all gets too heavy to hold you

  posit a finite universe? Get real! Give

  me a break! And remember what goes

  around comes around Time perhaps (you

  think) to roll out your brightest luminaries

  Galvani Volta Kelvin Faraday? Why not?

  After all they tried to guess my nature

  ingratiate themselves seduce then pimp

  me to servitude! Franklin spiked my

  favourite most awe-inspiring party

  trick Old Faithful my oak-splitting

  temple-shearing steeple-wrecking bolt

  He strung you a line in copper and I

  bought it OK no problem I can be pliable

  amenable reliable when nicely asked

  when your conduct is suitably aligned is

  altogether proper and correct But if it

  wasn’t tricks with kites and lightning

  (self-evident truths) it was some masque

  of trivial pursuits – that gavotte of frog’s

  legs on ionised wire – or it was the very

  stuff of nightmares Frankenstein’s unrisen

  clay his makeshift corpse and twitching

  limbs his pearly eyes rolled back by my

  miraculous spark of life speech already

  rotting his purple lips with loneliness Pure

  fiction! Or so you thought Man that is

  born of Woman and nothing else but the

  holy word of God Man that hath but a

  short time to live and is full of misery

  and cometh up and is cut down like a

  flower etcetera etcetera What a yawn!

  Come play with me and we’ll see about

  that with a little cryogenics but it won’t

  be your kiss they’re woken with or any

  other kiss but mine My blue-sparking

  lips My speech melting their deep-freeze

  complexions their slush puppy icing of

  never-lasting death What a rush! But I

  digress At least you were getting a handle

  on me getting the hang of it with your

  arcane paraphernalia The generation

  game in full swing now At long last you

  were harnessing nature making me your

  tool and I was a little shocker neither

  grateful nor ungrateful merely along

  for the ride (anything for a buzz!) and

  time for a little bonding ionically or

  ironically perhaps You might even say

  I’d become iconic Quite a mouthful!

  But before you knew it I was schlepping

  through saltwater slinking across iron

  zinging into cells of acid slipping through

  coils of copper tags of zinc anode/cathode

  attraction/repulsion You held me for the

  first time speculated so that I accumulated

  and yes I stayed around for the party –

  after all you had potential now Conventional

  current didn’t get my drift but your apparatus

  worked and that was all that mattered My

  induction your deduction terminals bristling

  sparking at last with light with tungsten’s

  brilliant heat neon’s coy blush something

  altogether more noble more municipal

  than curiosity or courtier’s games I was

  charismatic a must at every party! I’d

  arrived and how! You couldn’t wait to

  turn me on in village streets towns cities

  factories farms Even tin roofed shacks in

  the middle of nowhere stuck like tiny glow

  worms to my web of light the bright net

  that’s always down there trawling the

  blackest tides of night Darkness – that

  other princely kiss – was licked at last!

  I was the original alchemist and alchemy

  it was me turned base metal into cheap-skate

  gold mined earth’s salts heaved scrap iron

  quicker than a man or slave or horse I was

  at your service all present and correct

  That’s me at your wrist for instance marking

  time All that was merely the beginning

  just for openers a pretty good hors d’oeuvres

  though the main course was still out

  there somewhere beyond my electroplate

  glitter Earth’s vamped-up carousel of

  fairground lights What a laugh when

  Einstein went in for Bodyline chalked up

  those long odds slung down that hardball

  curve at the speed of light! I didn’t get it but

  didn’t let it get to me I hadn’t peaked yet

  took guard hooked his fast stuff to the out

  field the boundary fence of chaos the long

  grass of uncertainty Uncertainty? Oh yes

  that became your guiding principle irresistible

  logic magnetic north of the human mind your

  natural state your state of grace if only you

  knew it my enfants sauvages And chaos?

  Those butterfly wings softly beating That echo

  of the Big Bang that whisper of the very first

  word the whimper you’re told was there in

  the Beginning? Well think of Shit Creek in

  a barbed wire canoe Imagine hell in a hand

  cart A snowball in a solar storm! But don’t

  think you can talk about everything garrulous

  ape You got lucky with me that’s all But then

  I’m a safe bet the dead cert you could put your

  hair shirt on to trump all that bluff prevarication

  doubt double-talk and second-guessing I’m

  Lady Luck herself your Ace your straight run

  your prile your royal flush of electrons

  the Joker in your power pack! Why don’t

  you cut your losses throw in the towel

  stack the deck admit that you’re alone?

  A loser faking it when I’m everywhere

  and everything when I’m the real deal?

  Here’s Newton in a spin struck dumb as

  a pig with an apple in its mouth Here’s the

  quantum level nothing quite predictable

  or safe your new-found friends those

  charming quarks in jester’s motley cavorting

  just where you thought you’d found the

  indissoluble indivisible grain of matter

  Nothing simply true after all nothing

  where it should be when it ought to be

  everything spinning out of logic your

  physics gone autistic each particle jumping

  and skipping at the same time in two

  places at once whirling inside its own furiously

  blurred helix just like the Pleiades those

  seven doves Orion chased The more you look

  the more they disappear So now you�
��ve got

  the universe’s petticoat its red shift squinting

  in the corner of your eye? How to explain

  all this? How to untangle all these strings?

  Holy cow! Jumping Jehovah! Jesus H Christ!

  How? OK first take one extra cooperative

  cat curled in a biscuit box and drop some

  radioactive isotope in there just for kicks

  rig it to a trip-hammer a phial of acid –

  poor pussy! – close the lid on the whole

  caboodle count to a given number Let’s

  say none a nanosecond almost nothing

  nada nichts niente nowt According to

  our bright sparks in the Science Department –

  and you have to hand it to them they like

  a laugh – our purring friend ends up dead

  and alive at the same time reductio

  ad absurdum! You have to chuckle It’s

  enough to make a cat grin all that stuff

  about multiple worlds antimatter super

  positions or to put it more succinctly – a

  hatfull of arseholes – neither one thing

  nor another Another fuckup another

  facelift another frenetic false start? Or

  am I merely all things to all men? Hard

  to tell eh? It’s a crisis of faith a theological

  black hole the mind’s white dwarf a hitch

  a liturgical glitch enough to make you

  search again for that old dilettante God

  And look! Here He is! Never far away

  late home again with His brandy and

  cigar breath creeping back to Eden

  fumbling the re-entry latch tip-toeing

  tipsy after a few aeons of interstellar

  parties bonhomie seduction booze tom

  catting and good hot procreation in that

  parallel universe you dropped Him in

  Look! He’s home Just in time to fuck

  you up eternally and beyond to tuck

  you up into oblivion Well not yet Not

  quite Maybe in His infinite wisdom His

  inexhaustible patience He’ll let the party

  go on late allow a few more charades a

  few more centuries to play scrabble with

  the codes of life until the next the last

  singular event Things are heating up

  nicely now! You’d like to change my

  channel? Switch over? Switch off?

  True I can’t choose you as you have

  chosen me but remember I sent a billion

  shafts of pure forked fear before you

  dared to call me friend Some friend!

  My caress can take the hair from your

  lip or legs blaze an eagle on your chest

  tattoo Love or Hate across your fists

  needle your mother’s name burn a