whether it's the fapping visionaries
who mistake their pathology for mysticism

or the deluded neurotics hiding behind
some romantic personae

driving them defiant to an early spectacular grave
or gutless after too many gray sickening mornings

to grow cynical savage and safe
in the long night of their aging--

for either one bitterness is so unbecoming of those
of their own broken vow to transcend

and such a strain to the wheeling stars that front
the vasts we cannot begin to imagine--

yet a life was lived and time dwindles
and both vision and hallucination eviscerate the soul

whether it be San Juan de la Cruz or Rimbaud--
jaded played Bauderlaire or even drunken bigoted Ti-Jean--

we all follow the path--lit with anchorites--and such
is the despair of the at most true Initiates

and at least poets maudits when they awaken from their trances
and find themselves back in the Hell that is

the daily ordinary world



Content (c) 2008-2012 Philip Milito. All rights reserved.