Friday, June 25, 2010

WAILS OF THE WRAECCA

Written 1977-1993; (c) 1999. This revision constitutes the FINAL version of this work. In 10 parts.

Who liveth alone longeth for mercy,
Maker's mercy. Though he must traverse
Tracts of sea, sick at heart,
--Wierd is set fast.
--"The Wanderer," trans. Michael Alexander

I. WAILS OF THE WRAECCA 'allone, withouten any compaignye'

Hwaet--

Half-way through this unfortunate life chastised some
I awaken to the fact of my errors--
Betrayals to the Love that is the very
Matrix of Existence lingering long like
A violet scar of twilight upon the skin
Of my wounded day--

*

Outside the dank hovel for this naked night
A muted abrupt scuffle down hall ceases--
Memory gives scratchy hum to the silence
As prayer pierces the cracked window
And rises contrite above the street traffic
To whisper its heart on high

*

What has caused this sorry soul
To cast its fate to the mercy of the elements--
Walking fully numbed and unarmed through
Urban environments favoring vermin and lesser?
What panic or aching lost love
Most hurts this soul?
Various destinies went unrealized
But as vaguest context for perpetual
Replay of my worst scenes as if on a loop--
Tightening and untightening a fist in
Rhythm to what and to its way remembered--
What have I become then--
Stupid enough to live by percepts lightly
Treated and thus dishonored by impudence--
Molded to precise inspired caliber--
Attached to cheapened endeavor and mourning
When such achievement's subsumed by disaster
Back into God?

*

With its dirge cast into my ear whenever
Lust and Pride stir the remains of Passion
The cuckoo seems a truer harbinger
Of the Almighty's Word than the Dove--
More accurate of and
Appropriate to out earthly condition

*

I twist and turn in the winds of circumstance
Dangling on the whims of idiots--
At the mercy of morons--

Thought I was destined for better
But was broken down and knocked askew
Force daily to renew
A pain my forefathers launched through history
While wasted at a peak
I hold the entire folly
Throbbing in my temples--

I live--a fool among fools
Descended from fools--
The busy centuries of my bloodline
Giving strength to their grip--
Now their glowing eyes I see
In the dark of imagination
Who've preceded me here
Where immortality is memory and gossip
Keeping known one's name to those
Who came afterward--

Heart full I retraced their steps
To tell-tale ruins the elements patiently subsume--
The remains of the house of my birth--
Rotted beams and sections of wall
Precariously balanced defying gravity
And slate plates of broken walkways
Leading up to empty space--
Then to their tombstones
Desultory epitaphs worn smooth and almost away--

These
Who hated to great effect or loved to no avail--
May they leave me
Taking their feuding curses with them--
For I am tired of this broken love--
Tired of waiting for God's alleged mercy
To ease the sorrow that makes all of us
Each other's ordeal--

*

Once more I salute in passing
The notion of greatness I failed to attain--
Oh impossibly high set it was
And disruptive of gain for the soul's sake--
As well as a sop to over-extended desires
Too intense for others to want to join me
In fulfilling--the simple ordinary joys however
Not mine for the having--my pride inviting only
Extravagant imagining--

Now needs and fears holding in check
Realization are irrelevant--
The ones I wanted to impress with anger
Are gone and I cannot suppress or ignore
Error while consciously facing
Every day what it has made me--
Yet can only manage a dismissing of tired old shames
Rather than some new humility--
Lost in some wondering of the unraveling and re-weaving
Of Fate in the stroking shuttle of Time--
Fearful of unclothing the all-encompassing excuse
And standing in nude appraisal
Of objective external conditions--
Motion in the vectors of its act
Begging in its rut the change of state
That will be actual only
With the fullness of its time--

And so a last salute
To the unfortunate genius of my obstinance
Done ill by its own ignorance
And inability to simply BE--
There's no greatness in me
And I could not be more of a fool
Than I was to think anything
I might say could hold comprehensive sway
Over any in earshot of my bellow--
My lungs propelling pronouncements
Like wind from worn-out billows announcing
Great excursions into new uncharted realms
Of soul and settling instead in exhausted
Desperation for puerile contentments--

*

As the brutality of the Law hammers us
Into submission with a trembling that
Veins the world with convulsions as if poisoned
My eyes glaze before another rare prospect
Ashamed before the Great Heart of Creation
To be as I am--

As I quit in the clench raw and exhausted
Weird fate steady keeps me in such wreck and ruin
As meted out by bitter unhealing hurts
Scrambling the vain mind and mocking the soul's
Deluded attempt to rest after failing
To work true fresh hope--

I know no love or joy of kin I recall
No hoisted cups of rhumy celebration
No harping boasting or proud defiance now--
No power or vanity avails against
Such decay of strength that makes the dwindling
Away of dreams sure--

*

Something breaks inside me
When I think of old loves--
The evil outcomes of good intentions
Make me stone still for fear
Of what further damage I'd trigger--I would strike deep
Wanting the hilt to rest on the belly
Then turn to absolve myself with automatic
Act of Contrition--
The pseudo-mystic petitioning his own mind
Unsatisfied with God and seeking better--

Those loves reminding me
My greatest achievement was to draw out their tears--
(I'd have disappointed more quickly were I
not dazed with hope--)
Waiting for Creation to fall into place around my wish
And finding no miracles
But fugitive embraces against lonely voids--
No comfort for old loves--nor for me alone merely
Alive on the brink of any moment
Before any breaking act--

*

What do I do now?
What faith now with my childish beliefs broken?
What slow ineffectual good with all the damage done?
God would not spare Jesus--who are we
To expect an escape from troubles?
If Jesus himself cried "Father--why has thou
Forsaken me?"
What can we say otherwise?
The world is a cacophony
Of violence and depravity
And the sky above
A black hole swallowing our lamentations whole--
And Lord and Lord and Lord
What do I do now?

*

It seems Perfection ham-strings the Almighty
The way our sin ham-strings us--
Laying aside pretence of purpose and will
I abandon fantasy of purity
That was my only cohesion--and in frustration
Learn the heartache that testifies to a
Suffering Almighty suffering along with us--
Connected Essence

With the attendant discomfort at being
One who will wring patterns from all desire--
Making the Almighty pay for that which is decreed
As the Almighty's Will makes us pay for our obstinance
Precise for the One's judgments are formed from our own acts--
Precise Unity

Way-weary--tired of hurting and hating
The mistaken try and the ever-failing loves--
Ever onward for God knows what or where or why--
Do I direct now my authentic amendment?
Do I forgive myself the dour endings--
The pains of parting what had been joined--
Means toward tacit will?

*
[Part I to be continued]


Content (c) 2008-2010 Philip Milito.

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