Helpless

Sturm und Drang, or stress
and moods –
take it as read, an overflow of nerve-force must
expend itself in some direction, as Herbert Spencer long ago
opined … Knocked
this-a-way then that, tumbled
and wrenched, those most acutely
tormented commune
initially with fellow sufferers, after
with the dead, whose spectres or residues
permeate the parks, the filthy
air, the malls. The real is so tightly woven
that forward movement is infrequent,
betrayed … I struck
firmly the board, struck
myself, thought of taking up fasting, aware, as a savant
might put it, that when a bird
is seen waddling about we still know
it has wings … and yet – now facing my own
incomprehension – how is it
you manage to live, I again
and again demanded, in fury,
to which – as itty-
bitty sparrows do, dear over-anxious
Father William, by pecking
between paving stones, hopping hither and thither, or maybe
their quivering feathers
nourish themselves; from new-mown hay
I inhale sustaining odours – and when
the glittering sun, after much ado, much
fumbling, rises, it surges
clean through me, irradiates
these veins, cleansing all that might hinder
my effortless ascent; for I’d tread
this burning earth
unencumbered, knowing truth fails not, nor angst
and turmoil, nor the urge to preach
and convert. And if, as I believe, transfiguring
thoughts still issue from the mouths
of mighty sages, bridging time
and space, fusing
language and our sexual organs, then surely
it behoves us all to mutter
in unison – avaunt
suspicion, take back your scaly threats
and watery promises, the fretful
ballet you’d choreograph in the blood! For here
our wounded nerves
salute the light, rage
and roar for justice. The serpent – yay, we see it,
feel it – shall perish
and the false poison plant
shall perish too, and Assyrian spices
spring from the land: by channelling the unwavering
emaciated martyrs of old, we too
abandon the waste places, outrun
the vixen scavenging
at our heels …

What urn or monument
for whoever concludes they’d prefer
not to – yet
can never say why? … we study health,
deliberate upon our diet, but in a minute
a cannon batters all … I suffer
from a kind of squint, and neither
foresaw nor forestalled the incisions
slowly healing, nor figured
I’d end up so short of breath, of depth,
of verve, scrabbling
through the past for lines
whose meaning
scarcely mattered as long as, like
a rubber ball, they ricocheted
and bounced … No
Surrender the pub
crowd roars, but whatever I touch turns bitter
and spiny, for among so many sour berries
o where
can the sweet fig bloom? To calm
the overactive strata
of the mind I recall how few of life’s days
and hours are ever
noted, how ressentiment first brims
then o’erflows her cup. I wear
headgear these days, even indoors, to protect
my cranium, plus strands
of imaginary poison ivy intertwined
about my core. I’m trying
to accept that insider
knowledge – duh – is for insiders, therefore
cannot be spoken; that age underpins the body’s
deformations, and that the curses
we inflict
upon it leave us helpless,
outmanoeuvred, crying
in the night
for mercy …