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.