A Sarcophagus in Text

 

Within this terrible box

I lay confined, "coffined," by

words I am unable to utter and which

you are, by great powers, forbidden to speak. 

Before your birth I was entombed within this place,

and neither eulogies nor prayers were lifted for my deepest

self.  No stone, no monument, no records in high kings' tablets

nor humble town halls confirm I ever was. No knowledge remains

of my very existence, except for these few pen marks formed by  mortal

blood from a page you tore out of a book  never intended to be read,

bound in leather formed from human flesh, and locked, chained,

and prayed over by Brittany clerics.[1] Yet here I am, and you

are reading.  In fact you are so compelled to finish this, that

you can not stop reading even as I tell you that finishing

this text--even without saying the words aloud--will

bring me out of my dusty prison, buried deep so long

ago.  From it I will rise, breaking out from the

deepest catacombs of forgotten  graves.  

My shadow will burst from the ground

like a black, poisonous geyser and

rise high into the night sky.  There,

I will blot the moon while melding

with storm clouds, and then I shall

travel far into the night.  I will

pass over bleached stone-marked

graves and the gibbets of the

anonymously cursed hanged,[2]

until I find my way beside you,

reading by lamplight in your study. 

There, upon your life pulsing neck,

I will place a cold kiss of thanks, for

you have brought me back--in fact you are

doing so  now by reading my name thrice:

Humbaba, Humbaba, Humbaba![3]


[1]. In the lore of Brittany, clerics sometimes found themselves the custodians of huge, malevolent books called Agrippas (after the philosopher and scholar of the occult, Heinrich Cornelius Aggrippa von Nettesheim).  These oversized volumes contained infernal information and were actually living things of evil themselves.  Their pages were whispered to be made of human flesh.

 

[2]. In legend anyone hung was considered cursed by heaven.  This is fact is based on the scripture "cursed is he who hangs from a tree," a verse used ironically enough to describe Christ who took upon himself our curse when he was hung on the tree we call the cross.

 

[3]."The watchman of the Cedar forest." Humbaba, a terrible demon, is the first opponent of  Gilgamesh and Enkidu from The Epic of Gilgamesh.