c c Condry

c c Condry Mar 2011

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face:
now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”*
-1 Corinthians 13:12

The half-light pale- a shroud
And light by cones is dimmed.
Let rods take slack against
The pall in onerous work.

There is no glass, darkly-
Nothing so brittle for the bare
Birthed of Eden land-
There is smoke and doubt.

Glass is sand and bonds.
No, more than this is cloud
To man, to hamper man.
Something moving, surely:

Length of grasping arm
And force of fiber, lew,
Is lame to pull this shade
That sets upon our sense.

Nyx, the *****, is suspect:
Her fruit conceed to Achlys-
Geras gives her work-
To ink the lens of Man.

The Great Goddess Night,
Her spawn as Stygian wraiths,
Take Solomon's grace and view
From even mighty Argus.

Granted, God has tools
For glass, but who has might
Enough to pull the mask
From Achlys, born of Night?

-c. c. Condry

c c Condry Mar 2011

This Shall Be His

All this...
O, this shall be his.

He who in well-leaned doorways
And oft-learned corners
Hath resigned any byways
To dream: “A tall order

To rove in the mud
And muck up one's soles”
Says he who would trod
Upon painless goals.

Him safe in his womb,
His wont wooden beams.
Neglect to his comb and
Plume and dusty seeds.

“Who would fret in the rain?”
He asks. “And why suffer venture?”
“I've a cubby! Where's the shame
In my hearth and decanter?”

“I tell you all!” he says
One night, in a fit. “Them's fools!
They that count on the coldness and chance
Of a bleak, backwards world
In despotic hands. Come time,
Come the end- You'll see what I have!”

O, the mites and the mice
And the crumbs and the cracks
And the creaks in the night
And the stock-still plants

And the angles all learned
And the steps all a measure
And every walking turn
And every processed pleasure

And the patterns and ease
With his paper and naps
What is good on the knees
And light on the back

And the age and the greys
And the frustrating lust
And the well-worn ways
And the old codger's fuss

And the twilight come
And the shadows of scythes
And a final look back
Through wondering eyes

And the what-if's and why's
Of the best girl in Eire
And the laughter of kids
In a moistening eye...

And the plain wooden box
And the standard rites
And the empty expanse
Of the graveyard night.

And no crowd and no cries
Just a man and *****
And pile of dirt
Where ol' whats-his-name lays

All this-
O, This shall be his.

-c. c. Condry

c c Condry Mar 2011

The Wanting Wheel

On a date which is altogether known
In the billfolds of bankers
And the abutting hearts of lovers,
And thoroughly logged in the appropriate
Depositories under appropriate covers,
An event of some moment occurred.

The boroughs stood stock-still that day.
While bureaus of such things raced.
Reports came in the usual state-
Filed with numbers and subsetting letters
And screened through machines
To assure their congruence.

On the import of this the West has agreed
And suits of several cuts conferred-
Their message: “Not bereft of status
Past but graced by status wholly present,
Marked by Trojan Hector's tragic
Fall we come to budding Rome.”

******, the edifice mark'd the change:
Neighbors bowed in novel commune.
Seers took to foment rapture
And obfuscated pictures lent
Their turn to Hells hereafter.
Evoked again King Pyrrhus' loss.

The brazen poet took to this,
Formed a certain sense, a catch
Collecting parallels- change a liquid:
Afloat the wicked buoys of politic.
Ashore the masses- sheep- insipid.
Abroad the falling, downy snow
To rust the marble shrines of old.

But how keen the poet's blade?
Her wit dulls at the thick:
All the rest were just the same.
Homer and Hesiod, through to Hughes
Seek their crises to be the rare
One-off of guilt and bold reform.
But want for change- a timeless sore.

-c. c. Condry

c c Condry Mar 2011

Be Still

Witless children wet their eyes in rage
At the stalling of things, the crawling of
Time. Their impotence fuel to an imprudent
Fire. Freedom, they say, is spirits and smoke,
Music and new dress.

Freedom, they say, is years away, far off
And too far. They wail for time to flit past,
Transient as the wisdom they cling to.
Unaware or without care, the sun is
Brightest before noon.

In throes no less fierce, the old codgers cry.
Cry for a time and a life gone by.
Cry for the age when no Winter, no grave
Patiently waited to allay the old pains
And take them away.

Youth, they say, was paramount. A tear down
A wrinkled face holds joyous laughter,
The sounds of summers back, way back, way past,
Way back past the weathers of age. And time-
O, time moves too fast.

Be still! Stay that yearning, my old, my young.
Stay your wistful watches in bitter corners
Of the night. That covetous need to steal
The seasons, trick the ticks and tocks of clocks.
Time assents no greed.

Rejoice! Do the goslings grieve at their plight?
At the comfort of strong and downy watchmen,
The easy and gentle waters? Do they
moan, moan to suffer age? Theirs is not to
Count the airy days.

Delight! The tufted owl is mute. Content
In his lot, his wisdom and shrewd. Esteem
Lifts his head, his repute a plush luxury
Won in hard contest with the threads of fate.
Perched in regal seat.

Hurrah! Do the dead rattle chains at their
Sullen and shadowed fate? Of course they do!
The clawing and dark is nothing in light
Of the phases above. The ages and
Labors of changeable life.

-c. c. Condry

c c Condry Mar 2011

The Mountain

The dim gold of sunrise draws across land:
Young men digest and passionately toil.
The sojourns of eager bees spread and feed
And mulch the land with rash conviction.
This virile Spring breeds.

The long slow gray of a life enchained
Is removed and sick. Its pallid face peers
Through glass unclear and thick. Yet still no rays
Can pass through old, and older still: The mountain's
Dreadful, rocky face.

-c. c. Condry

c c Condry Mar 2011

For The Queer

In different men beat different hearts
O, love alights on many boughs.
Our fires burn whole worlds apart
Enamored well but not avowed.

O, love alights on many boughs
And branches sway in violent storm.
Enamored well but not avowed
The wind rocks branches, bark is torn.

And branches sway in violent storm
So suffered men embrace in shame.
The wind rocks branches, bark is torn
And heads of state denounce their names.

So suffered men embrace in shame
To swallow judgement, dim and slant.
And heads of state denounce their names
For fear they too hold sinful hands.

To swallow judgement, dim and slant
Abnormal partners yet still wait.
For fear they too hold sinful hands
The ruling men keep vice at bay.

Abnormal partners yet still wait
Not biting back but biding time.
The ruling men keep vice at bay
Too thick to see past party lines.

Not biting back but biding time
Our fires burn whole worlds apart.
Too thick to see, past party lines,
In different men beat different hearts.

-c. c. Condry

c c Condry Mar 2011

To You, Man

To you, Man.
To the day
Your sojourn
From heat and brush
Found fecund crescent
And soil.
To your dogged pursuit,
In dead of winter,
Of meat and succor,
And bone.

To you, Man.
To the day
When your head
Turned upright
And began appraisal
In earnest.
To when your legs
Slaved
And freed your dexterity-
Your able
And working hands.

To you, Man.
To the day
You rendered
The plains beast
And whispered
Life into the still
And dim
Of a cave.
To depiction,
And art.

To you, Man.
To the day
When Nature turned
Her throat to you
In submission.
To your implements
And shafts,
Cutters and
Killers.

To you, Man.
To the day
You woke most Promethean,
And pirated fire,
Stole from the elements
Without ransom.
To your second attempt,
Your brash temptation
Of Zeus' bolts.
Again you stole light
And made no attempt
At mitigation.

To you, Man.
To the day
Your wonder
Exceeded your need,
Begat the metropolis
And smoke.
To your institutions
And monopolies,
Your greed
And bias.

To you, Man.
To the day
You traded war
For affluence,
Fraternity
For dominion.
To your plague
And bitter taste.

And to you, Man.
To today.
And you've a mind
To make up.
Find epiphany,
Wake
Into chivalry
And care-
Sow the seeds of greener leaves?
Or continue in sloth,
Stagnate
And succumb
To waste-
Burn the field for just one ream?

So to you, Man.
O, to you,
Man.