In the time before the earth was firm, or reeds had found the sun, The sweet and salt were mingled deep and flowed as only one. The Father Apsu quiet lay, the Mother tidal deep, Until the gods began to stir and wake them from their sleep. The clatter of the younger ones was like a burning sting, So Apsu rose to kill the life that he had helped to bring. But Ea, wise and perceptive, had heard the deadly plot, He poured a sleep upon the Sire and slew him on the spot. He built his temple on the corpse, upon the water’s bed, And Marduk rose with fourfold eyes and fire around his head. The Mother Tiamat bellowed out, her mourning turned to rage, She called her monsters from the dark to wreck the coming age. The war of the ages has finally begun. Musmahhu is rising, the heads are a storm, The sub-atomic blizzard that shatters the form. Usumgallu is crowned in the dragon’s own dread, With the weight of the abyss fixed firm on his head. Basmu is sliding, the high-voltage wire, The circuit of venom, the conductor of fire. Mushussu gallops on graviton flux, Reducing the glory of heavens to lux. Lahmu is hairy, the sentry of wells, Crushing the stars in his aqueous hells. Ugallu is screaming, the lion of weight, The heavy-hand hammer of Kingo’s own fate. Uridimmu is hunting the scent of belief, The mad dog of space and the dealer of grief. Girtablullu guards where the two waters meet, The scorpion-stinger of the tactical fleet. Umu-dabrutu, the climate of pain, The acid that falls in the crystalline rain. Kulullu is swimming the dark-matter brine, Where the laws of the physics no longer align. Kusarikku is charging the logical gate, The brute-force expression of Tiamat’s state. The voltage is perfect. The alignment is high. We are the spark in the old Mother’s eye. The roll call is finished. The hosts are awake. The foundation of being is starting to shake. Under the banner of the dragon of deep, The gods of the order shall eternally sleep. For the Tao is a current, the Tao is a flood, And we are the iron in the Mother's own blood. Thump. Drip. The Birkeland filaments are twisted and tight. Welcome to the tunnel of infinite night. Then Marduk hitched his stormy steeds and rode the lightning’s arc, To face the leven terrors that were crawling through the dark. He did not climb a mountain top or cross a distant sea, He met them in the open sky to set the spirits free. He threw the net of fourfold winds, the north and south and west, To trap the Mother in a snare and put her might to test. She opened wide her salty jaws to eat the burning light, He drove the Evil Wind inside to stop her in her bite. It filled her belly, puffed her frame, it bloated every part, Until he let his arrow fly and split her bitter heart. He stood upon her broken back, her crust began to tear, He pulled the head and tail apart to build the earth and air. The world began to stretch and grow, the gap between her sides, Was filled with water from her eyes to make the rising tides. He took the blood of Kingu’s veins, the rebel’s hot and red, And mixed it with the heavy clay to make a human head. We walk the skin of Tiamat, her wounds the ocean floor, The body that was split in two is ground for evermore. The Tablets rest on Marduk’s chest, the fates are fixed and strong, The sky is made of Mother’s ghost where all our souls belong. The stars are stationed in their place, the sun begins to burn, Upon the corpse of ancient wars the world begins to turn.
