Jan 2020
SWEET ILLUSION
Not to rupture the seam: in the long din of locking skulls,
appeals to the deaf are the bones of soliloquy.
Then like ooze they descend, rejoicing again!
The wise in their easy faith, their docile drift,
their wholesome lies. By what strength do I,
least pious of men, ascend these dim flights of reason:
Never bending, still I thirst;
this mortal rail both crutch and curse.
Such a stubborn ***…their cult of light would be mine—
had not that wasting disease, that mad desire to know,
been spawned in childhood, grown fat on my naivete…
had not that grim ogre Truth won possession of my mind.
I was young and strong and foolish.
I held a restless plum in granite,
ripe for any man with nerve enough
to worship sense over myth.
Their hallowed ruse is still beneath me.
But I’m older now, and bound by time
to grip the rail, to check my climb:
each step an hour, each day a tier—
ah, to pause, to kneel,
to part with my dignity here.
Up once more.
And who am I to think I’ll find
the answers I’ve been living for.
Let me hold my peace, never lose my grip.
Let me hang on till my senses slip.
Let me close to mind each skeptic’s call
as death takes wing to break his fall:
Don’t leave me, dear God, not again!
Catch me lest my life should end.
Worm
As this fever is groomed for the grave,
it weathers the lash of time.
Though lamb is the morsel you crave,
your sheep perseveres into prime.
You will have your prize,
but while I seethe…this mind is mine!
I’ll not be swayed by a crude, transparent suggestion.
I’ll bind my eyes, deny I see
that gleam, that sweet illusion,
grown bold, seducing me.
I’ll right my spine, I’ll lock my knees,
I’ll cast this trembling life aloft,
in offer to a breeze,
never knowing whence it rose,
nor ever where it flees.
**** you!
Each riddle answered begets another riddle!
Each vagabond, protean solution
is but a fragment of the boundless puzzle.
While I have strength let me learn.
Let me juxtapose, let me correlate the pieces.
Let me vow to expose you,
to hound you till I pin you down;
to rave the melancholy deep,
while sane enough to see
that I’m older now, and due in time,
to doubt my mind, to sense that I’m
nearly where you want me.
Beyond this feeble glow, all is certainly darkness.
Yet the wise speak of a further life, of a will to come.
They whimper when prodded; dogs drugged by a dream—
their gilt Dove a bauble—like children,
they are hypnotized by the gleam.
I can see it in their eyes.
And to pause here I can almost see
an endless night embracing me.
Listen! There is mirth at the threshold,
a perverse kind of pride.
Hypocrites! Echolalics! Somniloquists all!
Mother Reason, make them cease!
I know now it is wrong to be right:
I am lone, and ever colder. You thief!
Why did you banish my feet from their dance.
Why must my heart want to mangle the rhyme.
If I were a wiser man, I would plunge into Light.
Yet I set my teeth and climb. Come worm,
be swift; there are shimmers in the dusk,
and I’m older.
Take these eyes
that I may not be dazzled by lies any longer.
Break this hold, that I might extrapolate,
die born, and in my hour dare to face you:
To brave the night, to leap the rail,
to lift that last forbidden veil,
and make this coward see.
To fall, to grasp the loom of time,
to lose my mind, to sense that I’m
nearly where you want me.
Not to rupture the seam: in the long din of locking skulls,
appeals to the deaf are the bones of soliloquy.
Then like ooze they descend, rejoicing again!
The wise in their easy faith, their docile drift,
their wholesome lies. By what strength do I,
least pious of men, ascend these dim flights of reason:
Never bending, still I thirst;
this mortal rail both crutch and curse.
Such a stubborn ***…their cult of light would be mine—
had not that wasting disease, that mad desire to know,
been spawned in childhood, grown fat on my naivete…
had not that grim ogre Truth won possession of my mind.
I was young and strong and foolish.
I held a restless plum in granite,
ripe for any man with nerve enough
to worship sense over myth.
Their hallowed ruse is still beneath me.
But I’m older now, and bound by time
to grip the rail, to check my climb:
each step an hour, each day a tier—
ah, to pause, to kneel,
to part with my dignity here.
Up once more.
And who am I to think I’ll find
the answers I’ve been living for.
Let me hold my peace, never lose my grip.
Let me hang on till my senses slip.
Let me close to mind each skeptic’s call
as death takes wing to break his fall:
Don’t leave me, dear God, not again!
Catch me lest my life should end.
Worm
As this fever is groomed for the grave,
it weathers the lash of time.
Though lamb is the morsel you crave,
your sheep perseveres into prime.
You will have your prize,
but while I seethe…this mind is mine!
I’ll not be swayed by a crude, transparent suggestion.
I’ll bind my eyes, deny I see
that gleam, that sweet illusion,
grown bold, seducing me.
I’ll right my spine, I’ll lock my knees,
I’ll cast this trembling life aloft,
in offer to a breeze,
never knowing whence it rose,
nor ever where it flees.
**** you!
Each riddle answered begets another riddle!
Each vagabond, protean solution
is but a fragment of the boundless puzzle.
While I have strength let me learn.
Let me juxtapose, let me correlate the pieces.
Let me vow to expose you,
to hound you till I pin you down;
to rave the melancholy deep,
while sane enough to see
that I’m older now, and due in time,
to doubt my mind, to sense that I’m
nearly where you want me.
Beyond this feeble glow, all is certainly darkness.
Yet the wise speak of a further life, of a will to come.
They whimper when prodded; dogs drugged by a dream—
their gilt Dove a bauble—like children,
they are hypnotized by the gleam.
I can see it in their eyes.
And to pause here I can almost see
an endless night embracing me.
Listen! There is mirth at the threshold,
a perverse kind of pride.
Hypocrites! Echolalics! Somniloquists all!
Mother Reason, make them cease!
I know now it is wrong to be right:
I am lone, and ever colder. You thief!
Why did you banish my feet from their dance.
Why must my heart want to mangle the rhyme.
If I were a wiser man, I would plunge into Light.
Yet I set my teeth and climb. Come worm,
be swift; there are shimmers in the dusk,
and I’m older.
Take these eyes
that I may not be dazzled by lies any longer.
Break this hold, that I might extrapolate,
die born, and in my hour dare to face you:
To brave the night, to leap the rail,
to lift that last forbidden veil,
and make this coward see.
To fall, to grasp the loom of time,
to lose my mind, to sense that I’m
nearly where you want me.
