Sunday, June 27, 2010

WAILS OF THE WRAECCA [Part I continued]



If it be your incomprehensible Will
To grant me clarity of vision
Keenness of insight strength and courage
Of Spirit to strive submit and heal
I'd be done with demons persuasive
Of generation for propagation
Of the false images of god they engender--
Blood-soaked before Your anguished prescience

True Ineffable One distant beyond
The cartoon god I've life-long cursed in
Abject self-hatred afraid to amend
Dubious of repentance and frightened
Of my fault--to You I plead
The blight of the Usual--its folly
And calamity--indifferent as to my proximity
Long as the painful farce can finish

*

We storm our bogus imaginations
Crazed with consciousness
Limited to the skull
Leaving no lament when chafing
The borders of our unique exiles--

As the world teeters absurdly on angered edge
With wails rising to the imagined Infinite
Which answers with silence so consuming
Even the surest steadiest faith trembles
In contemplation of its depths

*

Now the burning bolts of righteousness
Slice the sky with ozone and light
And at last I change direction
Not knowing where as long as it is away
From where I've been dangerous in the open
A bald spot singed into the top of my brain
My will like a pile of ash in my mind
Awaiting flight in a gust of ordeal

Now the fire of judgment manifests itself
Revealing holiness in squiggles of afterglow
Snaking quickly over and disappearing on
The charred residue of consequence
The air itself moves over the remains of Man
And his works blowing them consumed
And wasted incomprehensible into
A vaster desolation beyond consideration

Now by dying flash I move against this wind
Across a life razed by a blood-thirsty justice
Depleted of any delusion and any hope
No place to rest and no place to hide
And somewhere far off in my field of vision
I see a glow intensify by degree and I know
Whenever I get there I'll endure again this upheaval--
God administering those bolts of righteousness

*

Lord I guess I'm done
If so may I not tarry here
If not may I not tarry long

End of Part I.


Content (c) 2008-2010 Philip Milito.

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.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

I'm so smart I've figured out a way to be miserable--




Content (c) 2008-2010 Philip Milito.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

the easiest way to become your own enemy is to oppose your own higher sense...



*

we all break down occasionally in the face of such unchecked mendacity
that one can only wonder why Jesus or any Bodhisattva bothered


*


no one is looking for me--Oh joyous wonder I am FOUND!!!



*


I soiled myself on the righteousness of imbeciles but it serves me right
for dealing with such matters--


*

I will give little or nothing to the thought of your perspective--
where I see gold you see yellow
where you crave the mob I covet the solitude--
how on earth did we have business together?

and what did the One want out of all this?


*

joy yearns for life
sorrow covets death

happiness is the calm that
joins the two and reveals them

opposite sides of one aspiration

*

I welcome you all --the house is small but the comfort is large--
provisions HUGE and satiation beyond satisfaction--

and afterward--in midsummer's pale olive twilight--
we all together welcome the night--one with the limitless instant--

you can live for such moments--or you can live finally realizing
every moment IS this instant...



Content (c) 2008-2010 Philip Milito.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

for lives of distinction
there are no distinctions--

the essence is one
and the conduits all--

each of us owns up
to our part in the muddle (thank you Samuel)

bemoaning the perfection
we would scuttle for the sake of striving

for distinction we already possess--
for those who've learned

their distinct part in distinction
there is the wisdom of silent appreciation

for those who tragically paid for
their distinction--let us learn from them...


Content (c) 2008-2010 Philip Milito.

once again I face a day when the idea of God's love is a cruel joke--

but hey--the joke is on God and anyone else
who thinks they'll dissuade me from what I know is right--

(and what a gray area that is--)
no one knows anything--and we all spoil this saving grave

when we presume to explain blindness to the blind--
now excuse me while I hide from the neighbors--

their love will certainly be the death of me--


Content (c) 2008-2010 Philip Milito.

Friday, June 11, 2010

too late too late for so many things--

and far too soon for others



*


there must be Grace--

I'm still alive and standing--


*

MATTER is the matter...


*


I must say the sky is beautiful tonight

pitch black field of glittering stars
and a cold wind giving voice to the branches

another year in a diminishing round
yet another summer coming

for me and for the rest of the world
yet another of many summers for the world

but how many left for me?


*

answer all riddles
with riddles

let the limpid pool reflect
itself



Content 2008-2010 Philip Milito.

Monday, June 7, 2010

I've had it with all of you assholes--

fuck all of you for the hell you've made of the earth--

fuck all of you for your pride--

and to hell with the god who allows you your mendacity--

I'd put you all into the hells you deserve if I could

but why lower myself? I'm waiting for the end--

and glad of it--



Content (c) 2008-2010 Philip Milito.

*Note: I've experimented with what I called 'spontaneously preceived' poetry (not that much different from the Surrealists or Kerouac's 'solos') in this blog, but have really lost the taste for it--and for poetry generally. Good poetry was always hard to come across, and today's herd of academic 'vase-makers' is more vapid than any previous generation of which I could think, off hand. And, to be frank, this 'first thought, best thought' type of unmeditated writing has a tendency to ruin one's instrument (again, witness Ti-Jean's later works.) After reading over the above, I've decided the course has been run, and the world has no further need of crap like this; it's obvious the democratization of the arts is an agenda fulfilled so long ago, that it become slack to the point of emptiness. If any more poetry comes to me, I'll work it the 'old-fashioned' way (and have words of far greater import than 'fuck you assholes';) and if I continue with this blog, it will be more of a typical blog, addressing matters spiritual/mentally/emotional/political with words, and visuals, and and verbally--just an average blog--and why not? If you want to communicate with others, a mandarin attitude with never do; besides, how much of a fool can one be over a lifetime? I'm not into setting a record in that department, thank you very much. So, we'll see what we see when we see it--even the greatest minds that ever lived couldn't add much more of substance. I think. I hope.
it's the Second Coming!!!!--
NO!
it's an invasion of intergalactic aliens!!!!--
NO!
it's Planet X coming around to shake everything up!!!!
NO!
it's hysteria and panic at something bigger than us
coming after us!!!!--
NO!

it's just death--who knows when and how it comes--
cancer heartattack stroke combustion hit by a bust crushed
by a rouge elephant--what does it matter?
it will come when and as it will

then death will be yet another matter altogether--
how your spirit will laugh at your earthbound notions--or not--
how there will be an eternal life--or not--but what matter?
life is like death in that it is what it is--

so figure it for yourself--you're alive in the instant--



Content (c) 2008-2010 Philip Milito.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

an age takes form
beginning its circuit
through the sign
that will energize it

oh ruins will be razed
and new shelter installed
(at least until time comes
for them to be recalled)

and people will work
on a higher level
while each body fights
its own crooked devil

pulling it down into
the karma it'd transcend
if it were up to its own
will to ascend

in short all new
yet all the same
this tritest truth
the wisdom of the Name

this world ever
the proving ground
to show how short we fall
whimpering without a sound

Oh One this will continue
until only you know when
so would occasionally you intercede
to stop us from killing yet again



Content (c) 2008-2010 Philip Milito.

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

well--the assholes have won again--
they always win here on the earth--

and there's no bigger asshole
than the would-be Jeremiah who denounces

this world and its mendacity--
pro or con--God is no respecter of persons

and God would as soon screw his followers
as He would turn a blind eye

to the savages who run the world and giving them
a pass to wreck everything for the sake of their own glory--

oh evil fool I was to believe--to care--
if the source of life is love and if love is this terrible

then what mercy? what forgiveness? what grace?
I give up--fuck the Divine--I'm going to get drunk

and perform bestiality with a stripper in some back room--
you think I'm mad? you think I'm not at peace?

I envy you simpletons--I worry about holy things
and play the fool every time I do--while the rest of you

cheat lie--even murder--and walk around happy (but sometimes
pissed off that no one will bless you and acknowledge your Kingship)--

oh miserable creatures that destroy everything they touch
with God's implicit blessing--thank you for making a hell of the earth--

you do God's work of justice and retribution--and my only happiness
in this is knowing 'trouble comes to all--but woe

to the one who brings it) you wicked fools--you evil simpletons--
you God-blessed jackasses and your misbegotten right to live--

I cannot wait to die--I cannot wait to pass--I will miss the physical beauty
of this wonderful earth (also dying under your vicious ignorance)

but I will not miss the world--the hell we stupidly call living--
and if God wants to punish me for this--let Him--

I'd rather die in the sadness of an endlessly broken heart
than live in the false hope of a crazed God's sick definition of love...


Content (c) 2008-2010 Philip Milito.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

against spites of god

and delusions of autonomy

no one can prevail....



*


vast and dull

perfection is the substitution

for joyous becoming




*


alive...

that's all to being

alive


*

for those who want visions so badly I say

dream them for yourself and stop expecting

the artist or the saint to do the heavy lifting for you


*


what? point out the

beautiful in you and be mocked as fool?

gad! what do you take me for--?

I'll give you jingles--at least

they resemble you--




Content (c) 2008-2010 Philip Milito.