I am a mess
I am a God who is dying
A hundred generations ago as Bacchus or Dionysus
In Ancient Greece and Rome I had cults
I went by different names in Haiti and Africa
Baron Saturday
I was worshipped
With the Berzerkers’ blood-rage
With Romeo and Juliet’s lusty obsessions
That dissolves good sense
That break taboos
That inspire the laws of bureaucratic civilisation
I am the God of parties that go to far
Of extreme intoxication
Of the freedom of insanity
Of the riot
And of thoughtless selfishness
For a while, I drove Christians
To change Apollo’s name
Torture and hang him on a cross
Women tore each other apart once or twice a year
To escape the drudgery of their enslavery
I am trance
I am the darkness of a nightmare
When the peace of sleep gives no rest
I am the ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and the theatre of righteousness
That justifies terrorism
You may imprison the grape-harvest, winemaking and wine,
To avoid my rites of spring
Of fertility, of orchards and fruit, of vegetation,
To try to be a good girl and good boy
To be a rational scientist
A philosopher
A monk
To create a fairy garden of beauty and control
Of flowers and fruit that bloom at the right moment
But I am the magnificent storm, Shiva Rudra
That washes away your plans
I am the unfair freedom everyone secretly wants
The freedom the Marquis de Sade and Crowley preached
The freedom from shame and guilt
The freedom to follow your will
Your power
That you drink, dance and snort for
Driven from within
That lets you forget consideration
Forget the feelings of others,
Forget empathy
Forget laws police imposed and lore told as lessons exposed
It is true that when I lived at full flight
When I was named
My ceremonies were the night to Apollo’s day
He was the sharp lines of rationality in daylight
Predictable
Knowable
Prose
While I am dreams and visions
The imagination of the night
Associations and correspondences
Knowledge from your gut
Poetry
Together we made you whole
Terror of the unknown
Of the spaces between thoughts
The body’s needy vulnerability
Nature’s gargantuan gorgeousness
The way feelings can be earthquakes
Can be sunny days in winter
Or a song that opens you naked to a moment
Has you reaching for the safety of solid sunlight
Of Apollo’s comfortable prophesies
The command and control of your hand brushing your teeth
The delusions of a web of meaning that will cocoon you
From lightning
From sad stories that make no sense
From trees that drop branches on you without warning because a wildfire hasn’t trimmed them.
If you embrace me
You will learn the art of letting go of control that leads to wisdom
Then the wildfire becomes a release that prunes the forest
My ceremonies become Mardi Gras and New Year
That mark the cycles of life, the seasons
That let lusts grow into the depth of beauty that is the love of Aphrodite