wanted to begin by saying that in the future
there would exist a poetry sufficient
to describe not only the splendor
of the album that's presently blasting in my kitchen

but then I was forced to confess to myself
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that such a poetry will never be and cannot be:
or that it exists already,

and that it is the poetry of the blood,
the blood unvanquishable, author of all true songs
and also of songs that shrug off the term
like the howling of wolves

or early Slayer records.
I wanted moreover to beat back the urge
to tell you about this album,
because at present I suspect it is very nearly secret:

and that those who hear of the secret and go on
to investigate won't get it anyway,
because they are more interested
in the present state of black metal or whatever;

whereas everything about this record by Of Antiquity
screams Not for you, not for you:
to almost everyone it screams this
in its nearly invisible midwestern way.

And yet I must tell you, as a solemn duty,
that the true blood lies here
and not elsewhere:
that real ambition

comes now cloaked in the garish colors
of desktop publishing
and broken CD spindle teeth.
I wanted to begin by saying

that someday a poetry would come to be
in which the praises of the album Nocturnal Grind
might someday be sung
but that poetry cannot come

or else it exists already
in the smallness
in the sufficiency
in the resistance.