WAILS OF THE WRAECCA Part II.

II. DON'T GIVE YOUR LOVE AWAY SO FREELY

You--who wish to know nothing about me

I love more than family friends or lovers

*

My eyes examine angles and

Corners where planes of

Walls and ceilings join

Imagining a shape to the universe

*

Well I've fallen

I've failed

Now you all can

Point your fingers and snicker

Now you can laugh

As all my plans

Turn into mere talk

And you cocksuckers

Hating me for the

Pettiest of reasons

Can gloat over

What you think is

My come-uppance

It would be nice

To say you bastards

Haven't gotten yours yet

You haven't

But I've been at

Your mercy for so long

I've lost my class

And now I'll show you

As much mercy as you've

Shown me

When you fall

I'll duff the high-toned nobility

And join the laughter

And the finger-pointing

It's so much more gratifying

Than mercilessly brooding

Over my reductions By you in this world

Damn you all

*

Everyone has had their day

Everyone has had their say

Nothing remains to be done

But sit back and criticize

The ones coming after us

The ones who'll make their play

And fuck up everything

Worse than we did--

Who did such a thorough job--

*

Angry that the wicked profit

I'm finding what

That anger makes of me

One day again scales will fall

And I'll have own up

To my contribution to their success

*

At the end of time and Your patience--

Is Your face a blur in the imagination

My pain pleads to unavailing?--

Forgiveness? Mercy?

I ponder Your precision of denial

As I straddle some abyss

Tongues of flames flicking up

And licking my balls--

One foot in this world

One foot in the next

And belonging in neither place--

Why do You prolong this agony-

You who murder us then bid us rise?

*

In the winter night

Ghosts stalk the whipping snowflakes

Giving definition to the air--

Their moods shaping chance--

Their vision a greed in the mind's eye

Blinking in the blinding wind--

It must be so or else

Why does no effort matter--

So crowded and hounded on the empty street?

*

I beseech in fear

Knowing false every image to which I pray

And Truth whole and complete

Beyond our scope--

What can be hoped for?

God? Satan?

Which mask exiled from their disciples

Showing no mercy or pity?

If this is our only choice

Then who help us?

*

What seethes in me

That finds no outlet?

What burns and drives me

To some black abyss of terror?

What so shakes me I cannot lie at peace

In my ordinary hovel

Wondering what I'll trip myself on next?

In a solid blaze of black fire

I shift in my white ashes

Bitter the prayer and bitter the silence

While I set myself to destroying

Every love that proves I've done wrong--

*

Don't give your love away so freely

Trust no word that can be spoken

Accept no excuse or explanation

Involve yourself with hunger

And that's the last you'll see of mercy

Don't give your love away so freely

Trust no unfulfilled and hurt memory

Accept no expedient yearning

We do not escape from our skins

And merge in some timeless place

Don't give your love away so freely

Trust no assurance born of desperation

Accept no gift you haven't earned

No two minds are in complete accord

One will feel hurt and one will feel cheated

Don't give your love away so freely

Trust no advice from the talkative

Accept no direction from the blind

It's a long way to get back

If you don't know where you've been

Don't give your love away so freely

Expose your heart to all

And shiver at the empty sheaths

Accept no praise or scorn

Trust no lovers or idols

Don't give your love away so freely

*

Knowing without wisdom or understanding

I carried each dissembling

Like a cross

Raging uselessly

Amid throngs of the hypnotized

Trying to waken them

To the sinless sunshine of blood and awe

But the world breaks against

The breaking flesh

Blinded by vanity but not yet hurt

Enough to renounce

I span spirit and flesh

Like a careless acrobat

Unable to tell

What any of us are dying to become--

*

What to make of it?

The child who expected

A salvation by miracle

Grew to be consumed in his madness

The child who expected

The Spirit to live his life for him

Grew to forget every learned lesson

The child who expected

To be reduced to ashes

Grew to be burned out in his pride

Oh One--forgive--

I've as much to remember

As I have to learn

In a world that was never

Attentive to Your Word

And now on some insane brink

What to make of it?

*

After the monsoon

Stars through tears in the clouds

Rushing over the mirrored streets

No one out this warm Spring morning

The last quarter moon horns like a fang

Through a break over the pre-dawn horizon

Fate in pursuit

Of the trophy of my skull

We lose what we most want

When we play it too close to the vest

Fate extracting its total price as I drain out

Like blood through a stent

*

Deterioration set in

I ate mushrooms and saw

What I saw as the face of God

Manifesting through the passage

Of time and the ebb of matter

So impossible since then

Tightly awake on some ledge

The air breaks in my hand

My eyes can't focus

I blur like a chameleon

Into the facts of the One's world

[End of Part II]

Content (c) 2008-2010 Philip Milito.