Sahriv/Tempest

Canto IV

Solektra – Eshikh/Earth – Desert

by Shoshana

IV  SOLEKTRA - ESHIKH/EARTH - DESERT        

You have been bereaved by the storm

Your husband ripped away

     Once your lover, caring mate, best friend

     Now alien, barbarian, tramontane

          A stranger from a distant place

          Humans were never meant to know.

For I am lost in an arid wilderness

     A torrid zone of insatiable appetite

I traverse an inferno

     Whose heat has failed to bake

          My raw desire for you. 

In a repast that has not yet passed

     Your body is desideratum

          Not to be denied me

You are breakfast, lunch and dinner

     Appetizer and dessert                                                      

          Your bodily fluids the condiments

               For my broiling sun of voracity

Sultry soup

     Salacious salad 

          And seductive snack

               Made in haste

                    For my delectation                  

                         And your discomfort

A piece of meat

     Served to me raw and bloody

          For my engorgement  

               And which I devour greedily

Though normally I would be repulsed 

     Not by the body I once cherished

          But by the way I have profaned it.   

     Exiled from myself

I lurch through a desert of delirium

     Where incoherence and incontinence

     Rule together in consort     

          Where reason is laid to waste

          And lucidity shattered on stone

I wander a wasteland of carnality

     From which civility has fled

     Assaulted by rapacity

     And thrashed by greed                    

          Where love lies prostrate

          Bleeding and gasping for breath

     Where satiety is a mirage

          Shimmering in the distance

               Forever out of reach.

Inflamed and chafed

     My loins stand clenched

          In the hot hard hands of lust

Our demented tour guide

     Through these wilds

          Of outlandish abandon

Crazed with craving

     He leers as he thrusts me at you

          Over and over again

His face a distorted image of my own.

My lion

     My once beloved

          The one I called t’hy’la

     You are now the rational one

          For I know not myself

               Or you.

My fellow sojourner

In this harshest Vulcan’s Forge

     Here on this anvil

     You are hammered unmercifully

     While I am twisted into a form barely recognizable

The two of us are painfully welded together

By the hard and heavy hands of my lust

     It is your lonely burden  

     To extricate us from the grasp

     Of the sadistic blacksmith named Pon Farr

          Who torments us both.

My companion pilgrim

Here on these bleakest lava fields

Of the Vulcan Fire Plains

     Where my body burns for your touch

     And your body burns from mine

Where I desire every piece of your flesh

And you desire ever peace from mine

     It is your onus freely chosen                 

     To guide us out of this crucible

     To find a way out of the tortuous path

          We clamber together

     To build a bridge

          Back to the life I have forgotten.

For even now

     Embedded within your faithful heart

     And preserved in your wearied hands    

     The invisible thread still holds

The living strand of love

Tensile, unbreakable, dear as dilithium

     The bond you will not throw down 

     To be buried in this barren waste  

          The cord you refuse to surrender

          To be shriveled under a blistering sun.  

But for you

     Dragged along willingly

     Through an alien hell

No endearment is uttered

     Save the panting and howling

     Of an animal in heat

For you no fond caress

Nor tender kiss                                                         

     Only the harsh scourging of the storm

          And the hunter hot on your tail.

The lion remains the prey             

     Predaceous, I track you in hidden crevice  

You are pinned on rocky prominence                 

     Whether prone

          Sprawled on your knees

               Or standing

I compel you

     Through the rise and fall

          Of undulating dunes

               And up and down

                    High hard-ridged vulcanic peak

Soft flesh yielding to hardness

     As I take aim

          And impale you       

With my bloodied quiver.     

Exhausted and wounded  

     The lion is pinioned

          On an awakened Mount Seleya

Eruption unloosed

     There is no escape

          From the surging river

               Of molten passion 

                    Burning your raw flesh

There is no eluding

     The sinuous arms of heated rock

          Which entwine, encircle, entrap you

               No refuge still –

                    Nowhere to hide –

But over time

     The most violent volcano will go dormant

     Its magma chambers spent

Eventually

     Every fire consumes its fuel

     And fades to cold and depleted ash  

Ultimately

     The ancient stars themselves burn out

     The grandest to perish torn asunder

     In the cataclysmic blaze of supernovas

     That birth new worlds

     With their elemental dust.

And thus this demon fever

     That has pyrolyzed

     My every cell and very self

          Must subside and wane

          And finally pass away

As every tempest, too, must die

     Even the hot and unquiet ocean

     That storms within my veins                     

          Will in the end

          Still to tranquil coolness.  

Notes for Canto IV:       solektra:  Vulcan for “earth; ground; dirt”

eshikh:  Vulcan for “desert”     tramontane:  one living beyond the

mountain; stranger or foreigner       desideratum:  that which is desired

and needed       pyrolyze:  to undergo pyrolysis, which is chemical decomposition, typically of organic material, by heat