I Want to Know What I Can't Know and You Can't Tell Me I Can Know

There's nowhere the human beast
Can be alive and be free
From culture save in deep sleep.
Only there, the smoke that burns

Off the pyre of thought escapes,
Like that one netherworld ghost
Bilgames learned was not there.
Is this a great or a poor fate?

The soul below can't speak.
The brain without words can't say.
The being that has escaped,
Can't explain in vanishing

Whether it was worth burning
To be free, to be not here,
Anymore than heretics,
No matter how mystical,

How pious or how correct,
Can holler down from heaven,
"I was wrong!" or "I was right!"
Or "There's nothing I can say!"

You can find bright-eyed gurus
Counseling it's best to be
Serene as a sleeping cat,
But who hasn't been asleep?